Papa Vs Pretty – White Deer Park (14/04/2014)
Artist of the Week (14th April - 20th April 2014)
There is nothing wrong with loving Radiohead. Heaps of people do it, even though they’re exceptionally boring. But what music isn’t? Some kids only listen to manufactured Pop Rock all mother fucking day and think they’re the coolest people at school (or their adult job, heaven forbid). Others listlessly devour literally anything radio stations have to offer, never stopping to consider where the music they enjoy came from, or who is actually responsible for it sounding the way it does. Shit, even the most epic and meticulously constructed metal bands will eventually seem monotonous if you listen for long enough. To some, they were only a wall of grotesque noise to begin with. Those people are, rather obviously, shallow dick heads. Also, fuck reality TV while we’re at it, it’s designed for jerks who celebrate ignorance. Ramble, ramble, down with society, I’m so different, etcetera, etcetera, Dillinger Escape Plan rule… opinions are fun!
What do these things have to do with the peculiarly named Papa Vs Pretty? Not much, I don’t think. I’m yet to write this entire article, and I don’t do drafts. This is shit is raw, homie, for real. Perhaps my notion that thoughtlessness and music shouldn’t go together matched with PvP’s primary songwriter Thomas Rawle openly admitting he doesn’t think much about his lyrics, and what they may mean while writing them, just happened to strike a chord. Discovering this, I was taken aback, because his lyrical approach appears to directly contrast the impassioned emotional fashion with which they are delivered. Am I to now take what sounds like true emotional output as contrived or manufactured? I hope not, and I’m sure PvP’s fan base would mirror my sentiment. It must be said I mentioned Radiohead earlier because Rawle sounds exactly like Thom Yorke. Perhaps the name Thomas brings out in front men a certain quivering falsetto due to some coincidentally suitable ancient Nordic curse, or maybe young Thom just constantly listened to old Thom and a slew of his British Indie Rock peers while growing up. It’s probably the curse thing, but we’ll never know for sure.
Papa Vs. Pretty’s second LP White Deer Park almost comes off as an audio manual on how to write Indie Rock. It competently swishes through soft, ambling Shoegazers, to half-punchy hook driven radio darlings without ever getting particularly complicated. First single My Life Is Yours is literally indistinguishable from a Radiohead B-Side. That said, it is a nice song, and something Thom Yorke might write while listening to Air’s The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. James Woods kicks so much ass.
Useless intro track aside, the strangely uplifting opener Give Me A Reason Not To kicks off like something from Origin Of Symmetry. It’s a nice enough panegyric that helps us all remember when Muse weren’t deluded millionaires with access to Protools plug ins. This all sounds brash and derisive, but beneath the shameless tributes and highly recognizable mimicking of a slew of turn-of-the-millennium alternative rock bands lies a fairly good release. White Deer Park is mostly nuts and bolts, but they’re all jammed in to one big machine that plods away dreamily for thirteen-and-a-half songs in a well constructed fashion that betrays what sounds reproduced and shallow upon first listen.
If you like The Temper Trap, or any other independent band that is evenly paced and musically inoffensive, then you’re already a Papa Vs. Pretty fan, and that’s great. They’re a proficient export that are doing anything but harming the rest of the world’s opinion of Australian music. While certainly not breaking ground in the slightest, I have no doubt they’re on the cusp of climbing to that much sought after global plateau in years to come.
Todd Gingell
What do these things have to do with the peculiarly named Papa Vs Pretty? Not much, I don’t think. I’m yet to write this entire article, and I don’t do drafts. This is shit is raw, homie, for real. Perhaps my notion that thoughtlessness and music shouldn’t go together matched with PvP’s primary songwriter Thomas Rawle openly admitting he doesn’t think much about his lyrics, and what they may mean while writing them, just happened to strike a chord. Discovering this, I was taken aback, because his lyrical approach appears to directly contrast the impassioned emotional fashion with which they are delivered. Am I to now take what sounds like true emotional output as contrived or manufactured? I hope not, and I’m sure PvP’s fan base would mirror my sentiment. It must be said I mentioned Radiohead earlier because Rawle sounds exactly like Thom Yorke. Perhaps the name Thomas brings out in front men a certain quivering falsetto due to some coincidentally suitable ancient Nordic curse, or maybe young Thom just constantly listened to old Thom and a slew of his British Indie Rock peers while growing up. It’s probably the curse thing, but we’ll never know for sure.
Papa Vs. Pretty’s second LP White Deer Park almost comes off as an audio manual on how to write Indie Rock. It competently swishes through soft, ambling Shoegazers, to half-punchy hook driven radio darlings without ever getting particularly complicated. First single My Life Is Yours is literally indistinguishable from a Radiohead B-Side. That said, it is a nice song, and something Thom Yorke might write while listening to Air’s The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. James Woods kicks so much ass.
Useless intro track aside, the strangely uplifting opener Give Me A Reason Not To kicks off like something from Origin Of Symmetry. It’s a nice enough panegyric that helps us all remember when Muse weren’t deluded millionaires with access to Protools plug ins. This all sounds brash and derisive, but beneath the shameless tributes and highly recognizable mimicking of a slew of turn-of-the-millennium alternative rock bands lies a fairly good release. White Deer Park is mostly nuts and bolts, but they’re all jammed in to one big machine that plods away dreamily for thirteen-and-a-half songs in a well constructed fashion that betrays what sounds reproduced and shallow upon first listen.
If you like The Temper Trap, or any other independent band that is evenly paced and musically inoffensive, then you’re already a Papa Vs. Pretty fan, and that’s great. They’re a proficient export that are doing anything but harming the rest of the world’s opinion of Australian music. While certainly not breaking ground in the slightest, I have no doubt they’re on the cusp of climbing to that much sought after global plateau in years to come.
Todd Gingell