Music Review: The Dandy Warhols, “… Earth to the Dandy Warhols…”
Rating: 54
The Dandy Warhols’ last disc, “Odditorium or Warlords of Mars,” was a half-baked affair that proved resistant to love for even the die-hards and had all the earmarks of a good band throwing the game to get out of its Capitol Records deal. Well, mission accomplished: “Earth to the Dandy Warhols,” their first for World’s Fair, offers gleeful reminders of why so many post-grunge power-poppers flocked to “Lou Weed” and “Ride” in 1995, even if it adds few new signposts on the Dandies’ stylistic adventure.
Always dependably arch when playing genre hopscotch, the Dandy Warhols start it up with “The World The People Together (Come On),” exactly the propulsive interstellar psychedelia the title advertises, and “Mission Control” is the kind of four-on-the-floor New Wave stomper the band perfected on “Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia. And in the odd bedfellows department, Mark Knopfler and Heartbreaker Mike Campbell add dobro and banjo flourishes to the lovely, Little River Band-quoting “Love Song.”
But then there are the extravagant misfires that will set teeth on edge — “Welcome to the Third World” seems intended as a parody of the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” but hews so close to the original that it plays like a bad cover. “Talk Radio” and “Beast of all Saints” are the requisite sludge droppings Warholians expect, and a 15-minute atmospheric coda, “Musee D’Nougat,” is simply a quarter-hour that cannot be salvaged. But the strong tracks on “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” recall the band’s better days, offering hope that Courtney Taylor-Taylor and his team of art-damaged pop astronauts have found a steady orbit.
– George Lang
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