Louis XIV : Slick Dogs and Ponies

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/louisxivslickdogsandponies.jpg" alt=" " />Louis XIV survive the hype and the backlash to grow to the next level on <em>Slick Dogs and Ponies</em>....
7.7 Atlantic
2008 

 Louis XIV survive the hype and the backlash to grow to the next level on Slick Dogs and Ponies. The San Diego band made a splash in 2005 with their debut, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, provoking much ‘the next big thing’ talk in that year of indie-rock ‘big things’.  But then came the semi-controversy surrounding lead singer Jason Hill’s double entendre, come-on lyrics, dubbed sexist by some (the ‘models in various states of undress’ video to single “Finding Out True Love Is Blind” did premiere on the ‘alt-porn’ Suicide Girls website…).  That’s more than many groups would survive, but instead, Louis XIV has grown and matured, like the young head-of-state outliving his domineering First Ministers, with the new Slick Dogs and Ponies.

There’s a pressing force on Slick Dogs, right from the get-go with “Guilt By Association”, combined well with band’s seventies garage-rock stylings, making a dance-floor urgency.  While Secrets was wholly indebted to the Me Decade’s garage and attitude, Slick Dogs digs deeper and farther.  Single “Air Traffic Control” clearly owes a debt to David Bowie’s 1969 classic, “Space Oddity”, and while it can’t be as good as Bowie’s first piece of excellence, it is still very strong; the listener might not join Major Tom out past the stratosphere, but you’ll make it to the jet-stream.

After that impressive one-two opener, Slick Dogs slips a bit, as Louis XIV falls back into old habits on the high press of “Misguided Sheep” and “There’s a Traitor in This Room”, thinking they’re a bit cleverer than they really are.  But the band cleans the pallet with the road-blues-rock of “Sometimes You Just Want To”, before going into their most inventive numbers.  The dance club-groove party-weary-cool of “Tina” works it like The Last Days of Disco, while “Stalker” hits a dark press, with high chorus.  And the single-worthy “Free Won’t Be What it Used to Be” is the record’s most original piece, a surprisingly catchy procession anthem that’s still some laid-back fun.

Slick Dogs unfortunately hits probably its weakest note just after that, with the not-nearly-as-inventive-as-it-wants-to-be “Swarming of the Bees”.  The orchestral expanse of “Hopesick” and frenetic energy of the finishing title-track aren’t quite as fine as those middle tracks, but Louis XIV have made their point: they’re far from a one-hit, here-today-gone-tomorrow act.  It took a while for Louis to get ‘The Great’, to emerge from the shadows of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin and become the Sun King, but he went on to have the longest documented reign of any European monarch.  With Slick Dogs and Ponies, Louis XIV is taking those steps forward.

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