Singles

No Machine - On Ebay

Dominic Valvona 03/09/2010

Rating: 2/5

No Machine's press release doesn't hold back on self-important, which is expected to some degree as part of the whole promotional purview, but proclamations like “a new blend of psychedelic pop,” or “its about making a human connection, no use of drum programming and drum machines, all instruments played live by talented musicians.” Mighty boastful, I mean not only multi-talented but they've created a brand new sound, unfortunately this is just a little over-egging on their part.

'On Ebay,' the second single off their forthcoming debut album, hardly lives up to the psychedelic tag, falling wholly into the bracket of pop, with just enough fluttering kooky nuances to give a few refined surprises.

These Athens-born brothers should have listened more closely to their Greek ancestors, especially Aphrodite's Child, who successfully married psych, pop and ethereal orchestration together.

Instead we are given a wishy-washy blend of proto-ska that saunters into a Mariachi trumpeting ode, with lyrics about putting an ex-girlfriend on the Ebay site, which turns out to be a quite fatuous enterprise.

The vocals sound at times fraught, with bursts of urgent warbles lending the song at least some distinctive attribute as the final section evokes fleeting evanescent moments of post Brit-pop era bands like Octopus and Subcircus.

No great shakes, this single may easily disappear beneath the radar.

Release Date: Out Now