We Are Scientists - Brain Thrust Mastery

Artist: We Are Scientists
Album: Brain Thrust Mastery
Genre: Indie/Rock/Alternative
Release Date: January 10, 2006
Label: Virgin Records Us

Tracklisting:

1. Ghouls
2. Let's See It
3. After Hours
4. Lethal Enforcer
5. Impatience
6. Tonight
7. Spoken For
8. Altered Beast
9. Chick Lit
10. Dinosaurs
11. That's What Counts

Brooklyn's We Are Scientists make it to their second album, Brain Thrust Mastery, a man down--drummer Michael Tapper departed the band in late 2007-–but with a new sound and a refreshed ambition. While 2005's With Love and Squalor marked them out as The Strokes' preppier cousins, lean guitar-indie with arch lyrics and driving tempos, Brain Thrust Mastery has more than rehash on its mind. It's an album that's both bigger and poppier than its predecessor--see gleaming first single "After Hours"--but also eager to experiment and branch out. The opening "Ghouls" echoes fellow Brooklynites TV on the Radio, a synthetic mesh of ticking rhythms, dubby bass and multi-tracked vocals, frontman Keith Murray singing: "We all recognise/That I'm the problem here", while "Lethal Enforcer" is a sly piece of '80s pop revivalism that somehow channels the smooth synths and echoing drums of Phil Collins without quite tipping over into kitsch. There's the occasional dropped ball here--"Spoken For", a serene, Tropicalia-tinted love ballad is interrupted around the mid-point by some unnecessary, pompous flying-V action--but on the whole, this is smart pop music that's clever but crucially, seldom clever-clever. --Louis Pattison

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