Empire of The Sun: Walking On A Dream, out now in the U.S. (finally!)

Let me say right off, this is the kind of album that I should not like very much. And I’ve been putting off reviewing it for weeks now. Tonight I just couldn’t deny it any more. Empire of The Sun’s Walking On A Dream is simply put, pop genius. I’m engaged in a discussion on another blog about blogs going professional – becoming tied to the big labels and bloggers becoming indebted to the corporate boys and losing their way. I worried that because I received this album from EMI that I was reviewing it because I felt I should. But I listened to it twice through tonight again and damnit, it’s just fucking good.

Remember Supertramp’s Breakfast In America? No, this doesn’t sound anything like that. It does, however, have that unique pop death-grip on the listener that BIA had. Walking On A Dream has so many tracks that I would pick to be singles, I mean they’re that good. It’s a shame that you can only get one from the label, but please go listen to the rest, they vary so much from one another. This is not a dance album by any stretch of the imagination. It does have some wicked good dance tunes on it though! “Standing On The Shore”, the first track, is so hot, it’s really a great pop song. I’m sitting here shaking my head in amazement. “Delta Bay” is creepy, funky theatrical pop and yet with all those warring adjectives they make it work. Again, I’m registering bemused unbelief. The next track, “Country” features fine guitar work and smooth electronica that serves as a segue from the wonderfully odd to the transcendently esoteric, “The World.” Their titles are artfully chosen, “Swordfish Hot Kiss Nite” is really everything that a title like that could possibly be; dance tune extraordinaire. And “Tiger By My Side,” with it’s echos of Duran Duran (?) is just really cool…. yeah you’d think I could come up with a more professional way to say that by now, I know.

Some of the hype surrounding Empire of The Sun focuses on the incredible videos and videography used to illustrate the music of this project. The project was written with a sort of movie quality in mind. I have to say, that didn’t grab me. Some of the hype is focused on the careers of the two men behind Empire of The Sun; Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of Pnau. Nope, I’m not an aficionado of dance tunes so that didn’t do much for me either. I’m telling you, it’s all about the music! Every track on this album sounds like it’s from a different band and yet also sounds exactly like them. Have I confused you completely yet?

It’s full of echoes, synthesizers, thick bass beats, catchy lyrics, and also incredibly beautiful sound effects that blend more mundane tracks seamlessly into the project. This is the type of album that you really want to lie in bed, in the dark and soak up through the headphones a few times before you turn it up loud and dance to it. Puppet said, when I sent him to the website to give me advice on how to handle this, “Tell me why I like this?” And I knew exactly what he meant. It’s not the kind of thing I’d predict for either of us, yet somehow it totally grabbed us by the dangly bits and it never let go. (Ok, track 10: “Without You”, I would maybe skip a few times, if only for the vocals which are heavy handed and reminiscent of some early 70s TV star-gone-to-be-singer tragedies. Yes, John Travolta I’m talking about you.) But out of 10 tracks, that’s the only one that didn’t suit me.

Go to their official site and get the unreleased track, “Romance To Me” and let me know what you think, ok? Yeah, you have to join their mailing list, it’s not that big a deal.
Seriously, buy this ….

There are more youtube videos, none of which allow embedding. Go see for yourself please, and then come back here to enjoy these. You’ll see how amazing this project is and how much money they must have spent on all of this. Wow!

Official Site
MySpace