Austin Sound

It’s startling to hear a band so decided in their sound on a first album. You expect them to be scattered and unsure of themselves — to have almost unwittingly stumbled upon something to be perfected in future albums. But Candi and the Strangers self-titled debut LP seems to have such an assured character already. There’s something intentionally seductive layered into Candy and the Strangers LP - a permeation of sex into dark, driving, indie-rock, which makes for good listening by principle (think of the successes of international act the XX, or the awkwardly erotic phonetics of Nico with the Velvet Underground.) A little tension is good, and Candi and the Strangers seem to revel in the fusing of dark, bedroom-style synth-pop with breathy, subdued, near-hypnotic female vocals.

Throughout the LP, they retain a stark take on indie-rock through fits of arcadian, sun-tanned ballads about boys, and other brooding numbers that expand in ambient melancholy. Often, the latter is an undertone of the former threading a nice dichotomy of optimistic innocence (read: naïveté) and real world despondency into the heart of this record.

It’s apparent on the first track, “Tetsu”. The synth and drums kick in deceptively ominous until the entire track shimmers to a major mode turn in Samantha Constant’s fleeting and feminine melody. Tonally, “Tetsu” lays ground for the rest of the album, which dutifully leads us into the mechanical and ethereal “MRI”. Constant’s panache to breathily and lustfully sing the mantra “you are the best part of me” over the song’s eerie, monochromatic, and siren-like rock sounds is completely natural, so much so that other tracks like “The Future isn’t What it Used to Be”, “She Walks in Beauty”, and “Pictures” (excepting the punchy guitar work) become common sounding re-hashes for such a sonically expansive aesthetic.

But for every dark undertone, Candi and the Strangers are sure to counter with melody and lyric of a positive nature. Unlike other indie/pop/electro rock acts, such as Austin’s Octopus Project, Candi and the Strangers play more straightforward, 4-minute, verse-chorus-verse-chorus songs, which allow the space for such pop driven writing to thrive. Where they could be drawing the listener deeper into their sonic landscapes (which they do on the wordless “Isabella Blue’s Crash Landing”) CatS likes to give their music a certain amount of accessibility. They capitalize on such opportunities with songs like “Sunshine” and “Sensitive Kid”, both cut from the same bubble-gum-on-my-shoe, boy meets girl persona that make their darker and meditated material more contrastingly stark.

Candi and the Strangers have crafted an album based on the art of contrast. For every dark and foreboding note in the LP, there is a poppy and happy-sounding release, mostly via the vocal work of Samantha Constant. And for a debut release, Candi and the Strangers have demonstrated that they have stumbled upon a decisive sound - not one that is completely without homage, but still wholly made their own on the LP.

Websites:
www.candiandthestrangers.com
Myspace