Forcefield
Tokyo Police Club
Released by Mom + Pop
It’s a very fitting end to my time at Carleton that I am reviewing the latest record from Tokyo Police Club.
The band played a significant part in my Carleton Orientation Week experience, playing an outdoor concert in the middle of the week. Having just released their third effort Champ that summer, it’s been a relatively quiet four years for the Newmarket, Ont. four-piece since that moment in my life.
Their latest, Forcefield, can almost be seen as a crucial record of refinement for the group. Paring back the incredibly upbeat indie-rock style that made Champ successful, Forcefield sets its sights on a tighter, more catchy, radio-ready sound. It measures up to such ideals quite admirably.
This change may not initially be so apparent with the ambitious opener “Argentina,” a song in three parts which clocks in at just over eight minutes. This is a monumental shift for a band who hasn’t released a song over four minutes in their entire career. It serves as an excellent overview of what kinds of sounds to expect the rest of the ride through—upbeat riff-rock, and shimmering guitars all expertly woven in around frontman Dave Monks’ poetic charm.
One need not worry about a complete change in artistic direction, as the band delivers a bevy of shorter, catchier songs after getting the eight-minute epic out of the way.
“Hot Tonight” has serious potential to become a fan favourite—anthemic and incredibly pop-oriented.
The dark sonics of “Beaches” remain minimalistic before an incredibly keyboard-heavy chorus, while “Toy Guns” rolls along innocently enough while featuring some incredibly heavy references to gun control in its chorus— “When every other kid on the block has a shotgun/I never know the difference between the toys and the real ones.”
Two of the most unexpected moments reveal themselves in “Gonna Be Ready,” a rare, uncharacteristic moment of The Mars Volta-esque aggression from drummer Greg Alsop and guitarist Graham Wright, and the swinging “Through The Wire”—at times delicate, at times crashing, and also bearing no resemblance to the Kanye West track of the same name.
With Forcefield, Tokyo Police Club has truly honed the pop music sensibility which has captivated listeners from their inception. The result is once again a record and a sound that is unmistakably theirs. The force is indeed strong with this one.
