Hangin' Out In 100b

I’ve already described my feelings about Julian Plenti’s (aka Paul Banks) recent solo effort, and – unsurprisingly – I feel pretty much the same about Julian Casablancas’. Seriously – why bother with a solo record if you’re just going to make the exact same music as you do with your band? Those albums pretty much just sound like watered down versions of Interpol and The Strokes, respectively, and their album covers even look freakishly similar. (What’s up with that, anyway?!)

While Alec Ounsworth suffers the same problem, perhaps even more so, that those two singers do – having an incredibly distinctive voice that listeners will automatically associate with the band they heard it in previously – his Mo Beauty doesn’t just sound like a lost Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album. It’s not miles away from his usual endeavors, but Mo Beauty does at least play around with styles and sounds that could never work in CYHSY. I haven’t listened to this enough to make a serious judgement on the album as a whole, but the New Orleans jazz sounds in “Idiots In The Rain” (below) caught my attention right away.