The Night Party: Get To You

- If King Khan and The Black Keys teamed up to play a garage gig by the beach but the neighbours called in a noise complaint you'd end up with the slightly constrained Rock'n'Soul strains of The Night Party. Begun two years ago, The Night Party is a fresh project for Rick Sands of Odette and Buck Lexton from Boss Cuts, the pair coming together to explore their obscure influences and collectively stretch their creative muscles. Since then the duo have been building a name for themselves based on their raucous live sound and raw on-stage energy. Unfortunately somebody forget to include that spirit on their debut album, Get to You. It’s not an not unfamiliar sound, just a little tried out and tamed, as though Frankie Valli and Little Red sent their kids to play at a reform school prom. Over the whole half hour run time, there isn’t one moment that really comes at you and demands to be heard. The tracks all contain a certain muted tension that makes you itch for a fight to break out. What you get instead is a stream of blue light disco slow dance numbers that blend into each other with a promising pop and an unsatisfying fizz. The will is there and the execution is perfect, but it’s immediately apparent that the real shine is only going to be delivered by a live performance. Maybe that's the trick of it, casting an album as lure, sent into the waters of the Aussie music scene to draw a school of punters to their gigs. The reality is that it’s simply too restrained, as though producer Paul Maybury got a bit cuckoo’s nest and decided press a pillow over its face. At the end of the album, during Light of Day, the boys croon out, “Why don't you just sit down once and listen” and sure, you could, but you should really just wait until you can stand up and see them. - Nic Addenbrooke.