The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower

A year removed from the less than well-received Love in a Fascist Brothel, the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower are back again. This, their new three-song EP, Inri, is not much of a step in the right direction either.

I’m really not sure what happened to this band, but they went from being fairly creative and dynamic to a band with not so much a bit of personality that they can truly call their own. Gone are the spastic bursts, the jazzy interludes, and the unique song structures that people gravitated to in the first place. There’s still small hints of some of those elements, be it a bit of trumpet here and there, or a quick chord change, but it doesn’t hold the same weight it once did.

Not that there’s a lot of material to be found, anyhow. In effect, all that you have with this release is one song recorded in two different styles, and another that’s more boring than either version of the other track. The song with two versions is the title track, “Inri.” One version is done as a regular song by the band, the other is done as a remix by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The remixed version is decidedly better, implementing some of the previously mentioned trumpet to accompany the jagged riffs and slinky basslines. It’s the only song really even worth its while of the three, as both of the previous tracks sound both uninspired and uninteresting.

This is especially true of “Boys Keep Swinging,” which plods along for over four minutes, not offering any replay value at all along the way. The vocals, the guitar, drums, none of it meshing together, none of it creating anything of value. You may remember the original recording, done by David Bowie and Brian Eno, which seemed fresh and invigorating, this rendition possessing neither of those qualities.

This band was never made up of musical visionaries, but what they were able to previously do was write some engaging, and somewhat challenging music. However, if their promised post-humous effort is a continuation of the direction shown on here, I want no part of it.