Animal Kingdom

Add Date: January 19

Artist: Animal Kingdom

Album: Signs and Wonders

Label: Warner Music UK

Genre: Indie, Britpop

Comments: I'm gonna be honest here. I'm a little scared of this band. Basically no one has heard of this band, but despite that, their initial debut album is being put out by Warner, and they were rated as the "Best New Indie Artist" on iTunes. Music reviewers are absolutely berzerk in their references obscure/not obscure bands (such as the Guardian, which referred to Animal Collective, Mew, Sigur Ros, Coldplay, and Snow Patrol in two sentences) in the review of this band. I feel like that if you buy the album, you get a free bar code tattooed on your forehead.

Really, what this band is could be encapsulated as a fairly shameless attempt by Warner to combine easy pop/arena music into with something people would describe as "challenging." It's basically Coldplay with a few more minor chords at its worst, but honestly, their best songs aren't any less artistic than the vast morass of indie. However, there's two massive problems: first, their name is highly reminiscent of the current music scene's most oversaturated artist (though my most cynical side is guessing that this was intentional). Secondly, the voice is, for lack of a better term, utterly awful. I didn't notice it during the first few songs (which are standard pop rock anthems put through an indie filter), but as the songs got a little more thoughtful, and I started to think "hey maybe this isn't so awful" I began to hear the voice a little more clearly.

Seriously, compare this with this, and hate me forever for ruining this band.