If its stylishly minimalist products, reliable operating system, and gumdrop-sized and colored range of iPods weren’t already enough reasons to be an Apple loyalist, now there’s another reason to stack onto the company’s credibility: the overnight descent of The Fratellis onto mainstream media.
Before bopping around my apartment to 2007’s Costello Music, I dashed out of my bathroom one night with toothpaste dripping from my chin when I heard the rock-and-roll-dance-party battle cry, “Everybody knows you’re the one to call/When the girls get ugly round the back of the wall” blaring from my television. A frenzy of Googling lyrics, finding the song title and band name, and purchasing the track from iTunes followed. And then I put “Flathead” on repeat. For an hour.
The big secret behind Glasgow’s The Fratellis gets unleashed on Costello Music: The Fratellis are fun. Each track on the album bursts with the refreshing sound of hip music that manages not to take itself seriously, despite its consummate professionalism in both production and songwriting. Costello crescendos from chic rock and roll anthems to the sheer glee of riding on splashy cymbals and precise toms.
Containing enough charming innocence to read like a walk in the park on a sunny day holding hands with your crush, “Whistle for the Choir” lazes along, dippily narrating a boy-meets-girl story of the big city before leading into the snap, crackle, pop of “Chelsea Dagger.” “Doginabag” creates a raw bridge between otherwise sunny songs, dragging sexy guitar into a JSBX-like explosion of blues-rock brevity.
Perhaps the most curious oddity about Costello Music is the female presence threaded throughout, where girls proclaim love only to snatch their declarations back a few songs later, somehow without sullying the playfulness of The Fratellis’ relatable—even crazy—snapshots of attraction. The recurring phrase “she said” throughout the album’s lyrics leaves you wondering about the who, when, and how many behind these captioned girls. Whatever the iconographic girl said, the results culminated in catchy lyricism married to catchy tunes.
Forget your preconceived notions about Scotland’s emanating rain and cold. The Fratellis’ lovability warms up any temperate zone, clapping its hands irresistibly through iPods, stereos, vinyl, and any other format you use to blare your adopted theme songs for life on a salad day.
