AGCS’ TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER NINE

Hot Club De Paris - The Rise And Inevitable Fall Of The High School Suicide Cluster Band

OK, first things first - I know this is technically an EP, and as such should be relegated from an ALBUMS of the year list, but let me explain myself. You see, in these six tracks Hot Club De Paris display more creativity than I’ve found on all but a handful of this year’s albums and have come up with more catchy hooks than most bands can muster in a lifetime. I’m Not In Love And Neither Are You’s opening riff hits home with all the force of a freight train and when the EP comes to an end 21 minutes later I’m left a gibbering wreck capable only of writing in clichés. They’re like [insert band name] on acid!

Lyrically the band are on fine form, with the title track’s tale of school discos full of brilliant couplets like “the last song is a slow one, slow like the brains of the morons / who were waiting at the fences to drive home their underage girlfriends”. Meanwhile Biggie Smalls and the Ghetto Slams manages to tell the story of a fictional band called, you guessed it, Biggie Smalls and the Ghetto Slams in a genuinely affecting way. Alongside the EP’s slower last two tracks, the excellent The White Town Express (Get High, Stay Low) and Three Albums In And Still No Ballad,  the song shows that behind the jokey titles and clever-clever lyricism there’s a real emotional core to Hot Club De Paris’ tunes.

Listening to this record, it’s hard to understand why Hot Club De Paris have remained so unjustifiably overlooked. Here they undergo no startling reinvention or change of formula; they just continue to write brilliant songs. Next year they’ll have a proper, long-playing record out, and if this is what they’re capable of doing in six tracks, I can’t wait! Don’t be surprised come next December if Hot Club De Paris are even higher in this list.