Classics

By: Jan Bunny
Date: 6th Sep 06
Release: Album
To Cure: Hypertension

What:
Classics

Who:
Ratatat

On:
XL Recordings

Myspace:
here

Not since a grade 5 music recital have we been subjected to an instrumental, and although this is probably not a good point of comparison Classics, the second album from Brooklyn's Ratatat is much less painful, with an intensity and maturity that 11 year olds simply couldn't achieve.

While Classics may not have a track that compares with their attention grabbing ‘Seventeen Years' the album is still an articulate response to the hyphen-saturated-world-where-subtlety-is-a-dying-art. Many of the tracks could host vocals yet are dressed down (no headbands here) with a modesty that the title of the album doesn't suggest.

In keeping with Evan Mast and Mike Stroud's programming backgrounds, Classics has samples, layers and instruments a-plenty. The tracks may grate at times in an awkward middle-ground between anthem and atmospheric, but overall the flow of the album makes it to the big city what Múm's Finally We Are No One is to the country. That's a big call, but you know what we mean.