Nobody tell Sun Kil Moon's Mark Kozelek about this band or this video. If he called The War on Drugs beer commercial music, I'm not sure his mind could handle a band whose video essentially is a beer commercial. alt-J channel their escapist 90s soul in this video, and combine it with a very polite but catchy blues riff that carries throughout the song. Just watching this, it's easy to understand why this band is so controversial. Listeners that need to take their music seriously 100% of the time probably won't understand alt-J. Sure, they don't have teeth, Joe Newman's vocals ape a dated rap rock style, and stereotypical "oohs" and "whoas" persist throughout the song. But you know what? It all adds up to three minutes of pleasant escapism, and that's all they're trying to do.
Our review of the new alt-J album:
- Garrett Cottingham