Physical City:Cadeaux

Physical City
Label: Sound Document

Genre: Danceable post-punk

Rating: 8.6/10

Wow. Fucking… Wow. I need a breather before I try to write this one... If I could think of a single word to describe this Vancouver act, it would undoubtedly be relentless. If you miss the sound of Pretty Girls Make Graves’ “Good Health” and thought “The New Romance” didn’t rock enough, if you always dreamed of Q and Not U’s “No Kill No Beep Beep” as sung by a female, or maybe you just think The Plastic Constellations “sold out” with their big choruses on “Mazatlan”… Friends, this album is for you.

Katie Lapi’s pressing-yet-rich voice never yelps as you might expect it to so many times (Dani Vachon takes care of the Luke Jenner impressions for her), instead choosing to just get to the bursting-point of completely losing it before she reels the verse back in and swerves almost recklessly back into the chorus. Devon Clifford’s manic drumming keeps the beat going (or maybe he’s just trying to keep up with the beat) while Rob Andow’s guitar proficiency is a highlight. His technical prowess isn’t quite the equal of Nathan Thelen or Jason Clark, but it is just as jagged and entertainingly breathless as those two.

There aren’t many problems with “Physical City,” it’s true, but if there is one, it’s that maybe there’s just a little too much energy; whereas even “Good Health” had its breathing spaces in “The Getaway” and mellow electronic interludes, here the closest Cadeaux get to an interlude is the “woo!”-induced “In and Out of Sleep.” A minor flaw for an album that will surely have you toe-tapping in no time if it doesn’t have you jaw agape first.

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