My fellow Rock NYCers have been raving about Love Via Dance Machine for long enough for me to give them a listen with the clear understand I am not, how you say, the target demo. The Mary Magpie faves from Boston are not the techno whack cases I tend to champion most often, their name notwithstanding.
Love Via Dance Machine EP (free on their myspace site ) is called (wittily I might add) All Is Fair in Love and Dance and it sorta lives up to its name. The band consider the sound Digital Pop Punk. A cute concept with the emphasise on the pop, it’s like early Blink 182 without the cheekiness and with a stronger melodic grip. They have five songs on their myspace and every single one will hook ya eventually.
And, of all of Mary Magpie’s bands, they are the most natural fit for Rock NYC and the reason is because they have a conceptual voodoo they’re trying to pull off: it’s a sci-fi teendreaming groove defined by saturday morning cartoon theme “All Systems Go” . The songs clang along and the synth keeps coming outta the background. It sounds as though they’re harmonizing even when they’re not. When they are harmonizing on “Chapter 2” they sound like a clear bell being banged on the head by a hammer.
This has to do with a clean sheen production that is all bugglegum bursts and though the drums aren’t mooted, they seem to shimmer rather than shake.
I haven’t figured em out lyrically yet but they have a definite otherness to whatever it is. It’s very cheerful, very fun and if their is a darkness to a line like “Superhero girls never fall for average guys” the lamentation sounds like a laugh.
They remind me of a Feargal Sharkey (the Undertones, kids, the Undertones) except the singer isn’t as good or Sweet meet the Archies in a showdown at the Buzzcocks motel. They should call their next EP More Songs About Dancing And Girls.
And Helen and Mary are interviewing em at some point soon so we’ll keep you updated.