Carsick Cars: 3 (Maybe Mars, 2014)

February 27, 2014 at 9:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Carsick Cars: 3

Newest album from Beijing indie-rock group Carsick Cars, who are one of the most well known underground Chinese groups (they’ve played SXSW and CMJ and plenty of other gigs in America, and Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 mixed this record). I haven’t heard any of their older work but I’ve heard some of it is more noisy, or that these guys have noise/experimental side projects. This definitely has some arty post-punk influence to it (“The Best VPN So Far” is a very Krautrock-influenced instrumental) but it’s definitely hooky, repetitive, droney indie-pop by people who worship Sonic Youth, Stereolab and other poppy-yet-experimental indie-rock bands. Lyrics blur between English and Chinese, sometimes it’s hard to tell which. “15 Minutes Older” has clear English lyrics. “Everybody Comes To the City Now, Everybody Wants To Be Free But Don’t Know How” gets the most catchy and singsongy with the vocal melodies (which are in Chinese). “Midnight Driver” has more of an uptempo shuffle beat. The last 2 tracks stretch out longer than 5 minutes, with “She Will Wait” featuring a drum machine ticking underneath and sunny vocals, and “White Song” being a slow-building ecstatic blissout with slightly distorted Chinese vocals. Glad to finally hear something by this band after reading about them for so long.

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