Singles

Eskimo Project - Hydrogen Bomb

Ian Atherton 07/05/2009

Rating: 0.5/5

Anton Ego, restaurant critic in Pixar's improbable tale Ratatouille, begins his memorable appraisal of a rodent-staffed eatery with a stern rebuke to his fellow reviewers: “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”

Anton Ego has clearly never heard Eskimo Project.

Though the nonsensical press release bravely positions it as “THE song of summer 2009”, with “hooks more effortless that any pop record of the last ten years”, Hydrogen Bomb is a very, very average piece of junk which is less meaningful than most things, including this particular piece of negative criticism (which was indeed fun to write).

Yes, the fact the band have chosen to “bypass major record labels” (entirely through their own choice, you understand) and self-release their band's output deserves some kind of applause, but artistically Hydrogen Bomb - insipid, overpolished, horribly dated indie-rock drivel - simply has nothing in its favour.

From the unbearably nasal opening lines (“need to exfoliate again, just let the sunshine in”) through the laughable breakdown (in which former Orange Deluxe - nah, me neither - frontman Paul Bassett burbles about jacuzzis and plankton), right to the final sickeningly earnest pub-rock non-chorus, this disgracefully bland pseudo-anthem is simply bad beyond words.

Those who find Snow Patrol a little too experimental will possibly find something to appreciate in this soggy mess of a record. No one else will give a rat's ass.