DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS
Please Describe Yourself
V2 Records
· It’s a band name and a public service announcement.
Can the cheerful pop props "whoah ah whoa" and "oowee ooh" be employed in the service of songs that are desolate at heart? Dogs Die In Hot Cars say yes. On their first airing, tracks such as "I Love You ’Cause I Have To" appear exuberant, riding a skittering ska beat with a chorus beamed from the first Farfisa organ in space. But then something creeps into Colin Macintosh’s lyrics. Clues of the lonely modern world proliferate: computer games, Venus and Mars cheapened by self-help books, the artless wish list of "Celebrity Sanctum" where Lucy Liu and ‘Angela’ Jolie are clearly admired from afar, but the hook is deeper – "I just want someone that would come home." The ubiquitous closed-circuit television surveillance found in the Glasgow group’s base is noted and, somewhere, Douglas Coupland wishes he claimed "Godshopping" as a title first.
Please Describe Yourself is no musicalmope fest. Producers Clive Langer and Alan Wistanley shepherded some of the most deceptively jaunty work from such Britpop icons as Elvis Costello, Morrissey and, especially, Madness and Dexys Midnight Runners. At the heart of the album, the singer wishes for "Paul Newman’s Eyes." At first, the song could be a 21st-century "Man of Constant Sorrow," propelled by a Motown shuffle, a bionic bluegrass riff and an excursion into brass band. "That would be nice," they conclude, with admirable simplicity.
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