you don’t have to do the crime to do the time
I’m only now getting around to listening to Louis XIV’s second full-length major label release, Slick Dogs and Ponies and holy fuck is it good.
I mean, I will admit it, I was disappointed by The Best Little Secrets are Kept. It was definitely an album that cherry picked “Pink,” that didn’t go anywhere particularly new. For a band so relentlessly self-produced, with such a DIY history, it really felt like they got railroaded into slick-sounding rehash of their previously released material for their first major label album.
With Slick Dogs and Ponies, though, they’re back to feeling like a righteously independent, self-determined band. Every track uses strings, sometimes in a novel way sometimes in an epic way, and songs like “Hopesick” and “Air Traffic Control” really provide the balancing pathos to the ironic pop punk that really creates the backbone of their sound. I’d go so far as to say those songs have a Death Cab feel, well, Death Cab before Transatlanticism. Better than that, though, the album has a really early-rock sound to it, perfect for driving around or dancing alone to. Perfect for summertime.
The raw sexual relentless that that they’ve previously used to such delightful ends is, thankfully, still present. Thanks for the reminder that even femme looking dudes who formed a band in France and who really rock the Victorian chic like to cockswagger!
