John Wayne Shot Me |
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For a Dutch band, John Wayne Shot Me probably shouldn’t sound so Americanized. Yet they do, and they somehow get away with it too. With their little bleeping keyboard sounds that set out to match the joys of ’80s console games, and some happy, jangling guitars, the band come across like a younger Grandaddy (not quite as jaded from touring the world) combined with the lightheartedness of Fountains of Wayne.
Let Sleeping Monsters Sleep is a cute release from the band, consisting of six cover songs and its title track, which acts as a taster for their upcoming album. And the most pleasing aspect of this is that the song ‘Let Sleeping Monsters Sleep’ still manages to stand out above the familiarity of the surrounding songs. With its boy-girl vocals lifting the chorus, and its straight forward keyboard hooks, it’s an infectious little monster that isn't sleeping at all, but crying out for attention.
Tackling a batch of diverse cover songs to follow that could easily have backfired on the band by either showing up their own music or wasting the listener’s time. However, they pull it all together with some aplomb, succeeding in stamping their own character onto each track, be it on Jonathan Richman’s ‘I’m a Little Dinosaur’, E.L.O.’s ‘Calling America’, or a cunningly bleak version of Destiny’s Child’s ‘Survivor’.
Importantly, the six covers don’t just come across as ironic piss-takes, and the EP helps 13 minutes of your life pass by surprisingly fast but happily. Overall, it’s a nice preview for their album due later in spring.
Steven McCarron
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