Demos

Part Dinosaur - Self-Titled

Owain Paciuszko 01/09/2010

Rating: 2/5

Originating in Southampton and now residing in London and Essex, there's something deceptively twee about the name of four-piece Part Dinosaur. Lead track Numbers with its heavy-math sound immediately dispels these mis-expectations, all erratic time signatures, half-yelped vocals and a host of stop-starts. It successfully takes in all manner of sound-alikes on its surprisingly bloated four minute running time, there's a bit of the Enter Shakiris or a dash of Truckers of Husk, but it never really comes together as a track all of its own, more of an experimental trailer for their musical stylings.

Keep It Down, Love feels like an immediate extension of the former track, diving into itself head-first and barrelling along in a hasty cacophony of furiously splashy drums and jangly guitars. As much as I'm sure the band have a good idea of what they're doing, there seems to be too many structures on top of structures jostling for prominence at certain points throughout the song, and it just borders on white noise.

Things cool off on the intro of A Good Host Is Hard To Find before turning into Los Campesinos! having a bad drug experience, still, the bitter edges lend this tune more of a cohesive beating heart. 'Maximum security is where we belong...' is hollered over a sea of burbling guitars and jittery percussion, and though its emotion feels forced and stroppy, rather than pained and angsty, it's one of this little ep's better moments.

Closer Sparks has a determined and climatic feel to its guitar, before going all disconcertingly 30 Seconds To Mars on its chorus of 'Weeeeeee arrrrrrrreeeeee!' Once more the band skip and scurry all over the shop, not finding a sense of passionate schizophrenia that really gels; instead it just frustrates. It winds down with glockenspiel trickling through the flurry of noise, before over-lapping vocals replace the noise, chanting; 'This place is dull and we're leaving forever.' It seems to aim for wry and wistful but winds up disappointingly flaccid.

Part Dinosaur can certainly shove a lot into a small space, sometimes over-inflating zippy tunes with too many parts. They may find an audience in a twee-pop crowd looking to move onto something 'harder', but this record is like channel hopping at high speed, occasionally you see something you might like to watch, but it's already lost behind a slew of the bland, the irritating and re-runs.