On the Casino Floor by Hotels
LABEL: Hidden Shoal

Usually, a band of any kind is made up of people who all basically want to play a certain kind of music. So many genres, they normally have similar influences and similar sounds which all form together to make a punk band, or an electro-pop band, or even a marching band for that matter. In the case of Hotels’ newest release, On the Casino Floor, that age-old formula doesn’t seem to apply. Hotels founder Blake Madden provides post-punk basslines and vocals that seem to have been influenced by The Strokes. Add surfy and psychy guitarlines with a new wave synth and what you’re left with is a very different kind of listening experience. What’s even more intriguing than that? It actually works. Pretty well, for that matter.

The sound contrast is especially apparent in “Bat Watusi.” The track has a bitter darkness to it, sweetened with spacey synth sounds that take what would normally be a good track to some very interesting places. I am admittedly a sucker for a good bassline, and “Trouble at the Consulate” did not disappoint me. I knew after the first 30 seconds that I liked the song. Three minutes in, it became one of my favorite tracks. The bass puts a spell over you from the very start, the melancholy synth will lock you in. “From the West” and “Lonely Islands” have more of that psychic sound to them, both very solid tracks. However, the exact same synthesizer in “From the West” carries over into “Lonely Island” and, for some reason, and it seems very out of place in the latter, almost like it was a mistake. Luckily it’s almost unnoticeable and doesn’t play through out the entire song. “Sleep Fame” is probably my least favorite track musically, but lyrically one of the best on the album. On the whole, the songwriting of On the Casino Floor is clever and original.

The electro influence present in On the Casino Floor is like gas is to the automobile. Alone, On the Casino Floor looks nice and can be admired, but it’s the synth that really takes you places. My only real gripe is how short the album was. Only seven tracks (one of which is a minute long instrumental) left me wanting more. That being said, Seattle-based Hotels is proof that not all roads lead to Brooklyn.


REVIEWED BY STEPHEN RICARDO
STEPHEN’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “Trouble at the Consulate” • “The Bat Watsui” • “From the West”

FREE MP3: “The Bat Watusi”