Homepage
Contact Cityzen
Cityzen Radio Playlist
Advertize With Cityzen.tv

 

Pleasure Club
The Fugitive Kind
Purified Records / Brash
by Darren Paltrowitz

Similar to what was said in my review of Madison Strays’s Richard Fortus-produced EP for Cityzen, Pleasure Club is an American quartet that happens to be entirely on-par with the Anglophile sound that is currently dominating the waves and clubs of New York City.

While that doesn’t say much for originality, Pleasure Club’s songs are energetic, funk-induced rock anthems that sound like they could work a club crowd as easily as an arena stage. Hearing “This Is Living” or the full-of-attitude “High Five Hit Me” on the radio wouldn’t be particularly shocking to yours truly, especially since lead-off track “Hey Hey Hey” has already gotten some airplay on Atlanta’s 99X.

Aside from the faux-accent in James Hall’s vocals, genre-hopping is the only real constant in The Fugitive Kind. While the songs all have a Brit-Pop vibe to my ears, some are downbeat along the lines of The Cure and others seem to nod to Duran Duran.

Ultimately, with the tempos and emotions changing so drastically throughout Fugitive that you may begin to wonder where the “pleasure” lies in Pleasure Club. Especially when a beautiful yet haunting ballad like “You Want Love” – solely using vocals, piano and guitar feedback for its instrumentation – is on the album. Or the “Heroes”-meets-Ride melodies of album-closer “Revolution In Red.”


Puns aside, with its music already available through services like iTunes and Napster and a lawyer lined up beside the group’s management, publicist and booking agent, the odds are undoubtedly in favor of Pleasure Club. Most bands could only dream of a sophomore full-length release being this strong and sophisticated yet mainstream-friendly.