Although I didn’t know it, I’ve been waiting for the Ex Models album. While
the "’77 style" has made a big comeback in the past few years, it’s mainly
been British punk and NYC glam that have been recycled. The Ex Models
have rummaged for their ideas among a different subset of the Class of ’77.
Other Mathematics, the band’s debut album, is like an
art-punk/geek-rock cocktail: blend two parts Talking Heads, two parts Gang
of Four, one part Richard Hell and The Voidoids, a dash of Devo, a pinch of
Wire, stir, then garnish. You know, it’s like the Bloody Mary you look
forward to on Sunday morning with brunch -- the one you get with your eggs
Florentine or corned beef hash. And so what if every so often it’s got a
little too much worcestershire sauce, or you’re not in the mood for celery, or
they ran out of V-8 and started using plain tomato juice. It still quenches
your thirst and takes the edge off of that hangover.
"Girlfriend is Worse" is an obvious nod to The Talking Heads, and frankly,
it’s 1:01 minutes of sheer dorky joy -- the kind that makes you bob your head
side to side and chime in for the "hey hey hey" chorus every single time you
hear it. "Rock & Roll Simulator" is vintage Richard Hell, but crazier, more
ecstatic. Why, oh why, don’t more people write songs like Richard Hell’s?
Ex Models totally wear their musical influences on their sleeves. It’s as
if they picked the needle up from Gang of Four’s Solid Gold or Wire’s
Chairs Missing or the Talking Heads’ Fear of Music and plugged it straight into their
amps...yet somehow they get away with it, without sounding generic or coming
across as rip-off artists. I think it’s only fair to say that they don’t
always successfully pull off the 1.2 minute explosion of zany angularity, but "The Birth of Disneyland" and "Supersex" more than make up for the occasional miss.
Ironically, I had heard a couple of Ex Models demos well before I got
Other Mathematics. Some of those demos were redone for the
album -— spitshined, as it were (read: rerecorded and remixed). Even though I’m
sorry to see some of their rough edges smoothed away, Ex Models wear their
new-found polish nicely.
