Album Cuts: Ima Robot

F

Ima Robot is to hipster rock what Warrant was to hair metal: too little, way too late. The band is comprised of a series of clich archetype irony characters, ranging from the singer, whose obnoxiously bad haircut barely rivals the guitarists' child molester moustache.

Musically, Ima Robot falls somewhere between annoying and terrible. Sounding something like Hot Hot Heat, if you were to take out any good parts and fill them up with enough sass to make George Bush booty smack the right rear pocket of his Wrangler jeans. Put Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) in a blender with Julian Casablancas (Strokes), add a touch of the trademark Connor Oberst whine and the beverage you have in front of you is Ima Robot's front man Alex Ebert. "P-p-p-p-lease!" in the manner of cartoon superstar Roger Rabbit is all it takes to ruin "Song #1" and set the tone for the rest of this despicable album. Even the single, "Dynomite" starts with a smart-mouth comment that gets more and more annoying with time, and kicks off the record with a pungent flavor. Ima Robot never smoothes out its problems; the album gets worse and worse as it progresses, until the climactic "Dirty Life," which sounds like an x-rated James Brown song with handclaps and repetitious keyboard loops.

The debut release from this Los Angeles quintet is a lackluster attempt to capitalize on a market that was already drained upon the invention of indie rock DJ's. The single fails to shine, the rest of the album spend its time wallowing in darkness.

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