Mystery Jets - Making Dens
'Making Dens' is the debut album from Mystery Jets. The album is handy that they have a hook like that for reviewers to latch onto, because it can be difficult for listeners to get their head around the band's full-length debut on its own terms.
'Making Dens' is filled with quirky, interesting pop songs, but each seems to be in a different style from the others. For example, 'You Can't Fool Me Dennis' sounds like an early, Barry Andrews-era XTC song as covered by Franz Ferdinand: the danceable stomp of the rhythm section keeps the spiraling tune from shooting off in a dozen different directions at once, but only just barely.
Meanwhile, the first single 'Zoo Time' has the cracked, disorienting post-punk-psychedelia vibe of a classic 'Teardrop Explodes' single, but given an extremely contemporary electronic edge. Then there's the handful of songs that recall Kate Bush and/or Atom Heart Mother-era Pink Floyd.
Honestly, none of it makes sense, but unlike, the Beta Band whose entire shtick was that the parts of their music never fit into a coherent whole there's a shapeliness to 'Making Dens' that suggests the record was constructed from some inscrutable blueprint that's just naggingly out of reach.
Repeated listens reveal the album's many quirky charms.
Release Date : 06 Mar 2006
