Much of the UK outfit Art Brut’s appeal lies in the wide-eyed incredulity of front geezer Eddie Argos — the need he constantly feels to state, then immediately restate, particular observations as if to highlight how incredible or ridiculous some circumstance or other is. This tendency is on full display throughout the new Bang Bang Rock & Roll CD: “I saw her naked — twice!” he exclaims (twice) about a sex-hungry new squeeze on “Good Weekend.” “Why don’t our parents worry about us?” he wonders in bewildered duplicate on “My Little Brother,” a song that flippantly equates music fanaticism with drug addiction to the tune of a taunting, tug-o-war riff. Which leads us to the actual music here: It’s bare-bones, Ramones-hearkening songwriting that’s as pop-rambunctious as it is three-chord-punk-snotty and just-add-water simple. The lead single/manifesto, “Formed a Band,” ambitiously asserts that Art Brut’s aim is to pen a tune as “universal as ‘Happy Birthday,'” and Bang Bang finds them well on their merry way. Any outfit willing and able to upend staid gallery decorum for Dadaist laughs and caterwauling, thrusting, jumperoo thrash on its first time out — “I see a piece on Matisse / Take three steps back / Take a long run up / And I jump at it!” from “Modern Art” — deserves at least a shot at that sort of immortality.
This article appears in May 4-10, 2006.