Bang! Bang!

When I reviewed Bang! Bang!’s EP Electric Sex I pointed out that the band sounded their best when they ditched their retro shtick and kicked in some post-punk influence. Well, sadly, much hasn’t improved on their debut full-length. The band are still content to play the jittery new wave with hints of psychobilly card. Yep, that means there are still bouncy bass lines, reverb-happy guitars, and pseudo-shouted boy/girl vocals. If you can imagine a stripped down version of the B-52s, you are starting to get the picture.

Everything on Decked Out sounds familiar. The trebly guitar riffs, wavering vocal melodies, and all-around aesthetic of the band are overplayed. On their EP the band sounded promising, but now that they’ve produced twelve more tracks of near identical tunes, their tone is merely disappointing. To make their own unoriginality all the more apparent is a cover of Gun Club’s “Sex Beat.” The song sounds so much like Bang! Bang!’s own material that it not only makes it clear who their influences are, but also who they are having no qualms ripping off.

There are again moments of post-punk explosiveness here (the opening riff of “(I Heard You Singing) On the Radio”) but they are again only small interjections of flair on an otherwise boring album. Bang! Bang! are content to not only re-tread ground they have worn out, but ground that artists of the `80s have worn out before them.