Review of Chalk Stars Single by Animal Kingdom
Review of Animal Kingdom's single Chalk Stars.
Animal Kingdom are supporting Snow Patrol on an upcoming arena tour. This makes sense - 'Chalk Stars' is US-college radio-ready indie-pop at its most saccharine. As dewy-eyed Richard Sauberlich sings 'when all you want is a rainbow, all you get is the rain...', he's yearning with the desire to be played over the end of some psuedo-reality show about empty LA lives. You can hear it fading in as Josh tells Amber that he doesn't think he's ready to 'go steady'.
The song is driven by a chord sequence initially stated on piano, and eventually joined by strings, guitar, glockenspiel etc. The second half of the song builds over a couple of minutes to what the band presumably considers to be a rapturous climax, but sounds to me more like a half-arsed Takk-era Sigur Ros; too burdened down by its own sense of self-seriousness to really take off and loose the dreary shackles of indie-pop-rock.
2/10
Matthew Jennings
Site - http://www.myspace.com/weareanimalkingdom
