I am one of those who gets quite excited at discovering new bands and artists and look forward to checking out their material…so when I stumbled across New Young Pony Club, having very limited knowledge of them, I thought I would give them a go. I had read a bit about them online pre-listen and thought to myself that they probably wouldn’t be one of those bands that I would normally be a fan of, or one of those bands that I would make the effort to listen to, but checked them out nonetheless to see if I could be proved wrong. I didn’t automatically think that they wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but despite the enjoyment of discovering new bands I can be, some may say, a little picky when it comes to genre.
The first thought which sprang to mind was that they sound very much like a combination of Ladyhawke and New Chip – both of whom I really like. So far so good. I felt that the material on “Fantastic Playroom” especially was quite poppy and dancey, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but not something I would really listen to all day long. Despite this, NYPC do have a collection of sure fire hits. “Ice Cream”, which is probably the band’s anthem (helped by being featured in an advertisement for car manufacturer Nissan in 2009), definitely stands out as one of the best tracks on “Fantastic Playroom”. I found the second release, “The Optimist”, to actually be quite different from their first offering, the highlight for me being “We Want To”. For starters, there seem to be a lot more of that indie vibe going on with this album with more use of guitars, and also it didn’t seem quite as lively and poppy as the first album.
All in all, I think this band is definitely going places and am pleased to have discovered them after all…
My-Yen Tang
