Fascinating Leeds-based indie Dance To The Radio have been blazing a meteoric trail for themselves thanks to superb releases from the likes of iLikETRAINS, FORWARD! RUSSIA and THE LODGER over a breathless couple of months, but with NAPOLEON IIIrd they have a character for whom unequivocal love is a little harder to muster.
Indeed, it's no understatement to say Nap's "Debut 7"EP" is bloody baffling, and not always for the right reasons. Yes, I agree we largely demand eclecticism from our best artists these days, but there's also such a thing as throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that's a trick Napoleon IIIrd appears to have mastered only too well in his breathless pursuit of weird pop nirvana.
Admittedly, opening track "Anti Patria" is engagingly offbeat gear, with a gentle, organ-led spiritual soon giving way to galloping beats, growls of bass and freckled acoustics. The vocals are gruff and excitable ("it's the simple things we can't comprehend" - too right) and then what sounds like a wonky cornet and part of a Sally Army marching band attempt to force their way in through the back door. If that sounds unfeasible, well it is...but it also sounds curiously right in this context and the whole caboodle somehow comes through with its' tattered dignity intact.
This experimentalism is infectious while it's allied to something akin to a recognisable tune, but from hereon in, things take a precarious turn for the puzzling and ultimately Napoleon can't drag it back from the brink. "Celebrity Standups" is the start of the malaise, with the Sally Army personnel having jemmied the lock to allow their jazz-loving tramp mates in to get involved. Someone sneaks what sounds like a recorder in and more trumpets and the ensuing woozy racket can probably best be described as 'Hood-esque' if we're still feeling generous, which we are. But only just.
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Patience is seriously tried by the time of "No Science", however. By this time, the omnipresent brass and collapsing drums have conspired in whimsical fashion and by now it sounds like the Beach Boys armed with kitchen utensils fronted by a deranged Alex Chilton and it's way too disjointed for this delicate hack's liking. Before it peters out, Napoleon registers his own disgust when he spits "They used to build things to last and they were right - you'll never last!" which may well be right. But then, I can't see this abstract doodling holding huge numbers of hearts hostage either.
Things rally a little with the disconcerting closing track "You Destroy Music", which utilises more trumpets tham ever and what sounds like a broken linguaphone cassette along the way, but also some surprisingly heavenly and fragile harmonies. It's all creates a curious juxtaposition, like Nap's trying to shove some much needed melody through a gap the size of a keyhole, but for all that it does have a strange quality of its' own.
None of which rids the state of utter confusion and damn-near apoplexy "Debut 7" EP" ultimately leaves you in. I'm sure there's a beautiful artistic picture hidden within Napoleon IIIrd's work, but he seems determined to smear it in so many coats of stylistic paint that no matter how much grubbing will bring out his true colours. For now, I'm retiring hurt, enitely unable to tell you with any clarity where I stand on this bizarre entertainer.
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