Luxury - 'The Latest & The Greatest' (TN1066)


Wait... What do I hear? Radiohead? Is this Thom Yorke, and the music... Imagine Radiohead singing their song "Creep" with new lyrics, the lyrics from the song "Not so grand", featured on this record as the third song. Even the lyrics have something in common: just compare "I'm a creep" with "Am I a lover of being a failure or just a failure at being a lover".

Apart from this resemblance, I consider this album as one of the best power-pop-albums in the history of Tooth & Nail... Being an American band, they have a typical British touch in most of the songs on this album... I hear Oasis, Pavement, Blur, Radiohead, Embrace... But this pot-pourri of bands is just an attempt to describe the band, because most of all Luxury is a band with very talented musicians, a terrific singer and good skills in song-writing. The lyrics are about life, pride ("King Me"), society ("Metropolitan") and faith ("The Glory"). Sometimes straight in the lyrics, sometimes a bit more poetic... This certainly is an album to listen to with your headphones on and your eyes closed. Just let Luxury take over your mind and lead you to waterfalls of melody and mountains of powerful rock-music. Perfect guitar-parts in for example "Red Mascara" ( a bit like Red Hot Chili Pepper's song "Californication" ), great drum-parts in Not So Grand... Starting with some up-tempo power-pop-songs the last 4 songs of the record have more acoustic instruments, like an acoustic guitar, a piano and a violin.

I can't give you another advise, you should just GET this record if you like  rock-music with influences from some of the latest and greatest rock-bands from the 90's. This is ART !!!


Karel Smouter

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