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Monday, October 08, 2007

CD Review :: The Great Spy Experiment - Flower Show Riots

Tracklist :

1) Dance With Me
2) A Kind Of Love
3) Late Night Request
4) Class 'A' Love Affair 2007
5) Interlude
6) Flower Show Riots
7) The Great Decay
8) Flow
9) The Sunset Theme
10) Siti In The City
11) Miss Kensington/Outro

1 of the most anticipated local music releases to hit S'pore shores in recent times , it's 1 of S'pore's finest rock acts The Great Spy Experiment's much hyped release debut album Flower Show Riots .

Flower Show Riots has been collecting rave reviews from the media & it's easy to see why the media felt a big 'welcome to the flower show' . Below are some of what the press has gotta say about Flower Show Riots :

As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the most eagerly anticipated local releases ever. Trust me. Based on what I’ve heard and seen from their live shows, listeners will be in for a good ol’ rocking treat. - www.trigger-ed.com

Flower Show Riots is a confident and assured debut and music fans everywhere should sample its varied delights. – Pop Culture Press

Flower Show Riots sounds really good and stands up easily to any modern rock LP you may care to point out on the Billboard Album Charts. Not a claim one can honestly make with reference to a Singapore band but I believe that there’s no exaggeration to declare Flower Show Riots a minor tour de force. – www.powerofpop.com

Singaporean indie music has never sounded this superb. - TODAY

A dance-rock killer that will slay both dance anoraks and indie scenesters. A keeper. - Life!

Judging from all the acclaim that Flower Show Riots has gotten so far , no doubt you will definitely find a gem or 2 in Great Spy's debut album .

Great Spy consists of lead singer/guitarist Saiful , bassist Khal , keyboardist Magdelene , drummer Fandy & guitarist Song . If you haven't caught these guys in performance yet , you should . I have seen them performed a few times & they're fantastic & they always give a very energetic & kick ass performance . If you haven't got the chance to , shame on you !

Although on 1st listen Great Spy's music might remind you of The Killers & The Bravery 's , there's no doubt that Great Spy's music manages to retain that local flavor/spark in their material without sounding too American & not to mention too British sounding (which happened in The Killers's Hot Fuss album before frontman Brendon Flowers decided to ditch the whole fake British accent fax pas in their follow up album Sam's Town) .

The album kicked things off with the very catchy beats of Dance With Me & A Kind Of Love .

Track 3's the 2nd longest track on the album , something called Late Night Request . It might seem long clocking in at 6:38 but it's a nice one . It was followed by the song which 1st caught my attention of the band in the form of Class 'A' Love Affair 2007 .

Class 'A' Love Affair 2007's ace man although I still kinda prefer the original version that they uploaded on their MySpace so it took me a while to adjust & adapt to the new version of Class 'A' Love Affair 2007 but still I really like it .

The title track of the album is another fine piece of song & trust me , the song sounds even better when it's done live .

The current track that's airing on 987FM is The Great Decay . For some reason/s , that song doesn't leave much of an impact/impression when I 1st heard it & it's 1 of the weak links in the album but after I listened to The Great Decay a few more times , it's alright now but honestly I don't think it should be released as a radio single . I would prefer something more outstanding like Dance With Me or A Kind Of Love . Late Night Request will be good too but I don't think radio would be willing to play such a long track .

The pace was picked up after that with Flow . Woah , Flow's such an energetic track . When I was at the gym , I had to pace myself when I listened to Flow , it's that good . I think Flow's a shoo in to be released as the next single , especially when keyboardist Magdelene works her magic on the keys & synth's . Keys + synth's = love .

The Sunset Theme's the only track on the album that's a music piece . I enjoyed that very much . Next on the list's the crowd fave Siti In The City & they closed things off with the longest track available on Flower Show Riots , something called Miss Kensington/Outro .

If there's 1 thing I would like to voice out's that why oh why didn't Great Spy include the oh so gorgeous , fantastic & super damn catchy Captain Funkycurls on the tracklisting ? I was a bit sore when I didn't see that in the album but I suppose they probably have their own reason/s as to why Captain Funkycurls did not make the cut .

Still I'm so glad that I picked up a copy of Flower Show Riots . Great Spy's album has been released with much hype but is it worth every single hype of it ? Absolutely without any doubt & the album has not left my stereo ever since I picked it up at HMV .

Great Spy has come a long way & with this album , they look set to sore to even greater heights than before . Flower Show Riots deserves a spot on my Top10/20 albums of 2007 .

Go & get yourself a copy of Flower Show Riots , you'll be glad that you did !