Drab City's debut album, Good Songs for Bad People, is released through Bella Union. Here, songs of innocence and experience merge with dub, hip-hop, dream-pop and jazzy soundtrack vibes, whilst lyrically projecting punkish angst and resentment...

Good Songs for Bad People incorporates 10 tracks (32 min, 46 sec) which flit from genre to genre while still, somehow, managing to maintain its own identity.

Notable tracks include 'Hand on My Pocket', which feels like a modem Vangelis score transformed into a indie pop song. 'Live Free And Die When It's Cool' has a Gorillaz vibe to it.

Dreamy and ethereal, a foundation of flute, vibraphone, and jazzy guitar chord melody can switch to drum machines or funk-inflected girl-group pop at a moment's notice. It's a flurry of 20th century references, combining and recombining at a schizophrenic pace.

As much as I enjoyed it, it's not the sort of album I can see myself dragging out in months or years to come. But, for the here and now this makes for an interesting diversion.

6

Nick Smithson