New Pants
Dragon Tiger Panacea
Low Transit Industries Recordings


Can you imagine what it would sound like if someone mixed the disco/punk sound of LCD Soundsystem or Gerling with a bit of Chinese pop music? Right. Neither could I. Yet I'm at a loss as to how else I can describe 'Dragon Tiger Panacea', one of the most delightfully eccentric albums with one of the most delightfully odd titles I've ever come across. I'd never heard of New Pants before this, their third album, and since I don't speak any type of Chinese dialect, I'm at a loss as to what most of the lyrics are about, but the album nonetheless has a presence which kept me listening to this mash of pop, folk, dance and punk over and over again.

It's hard to pick a standout track, too, if only because each song seems to take such a different direction to the one before it. The brisk, synth-heavy You're My Superstar harkens back to 1980s pop-rock, while the sweet innocuous Bye Bye Disco, one of the few English-language tracks on the album, would be at home somewhere near Daft Punk's earlier work. The album's title track is a darker slice of electronic that verges on acid house and samples some boisterous martial arts cries, while Otaku strays from the electronic sound a bit to dabble in the same area of experimental rock as Death In Vegas. There are so many different sounds which serve as points of reference for 'Dragon Tiger Panacea', but the album exists in its own very distinctive space. Each track is reminiscent of another artist without sounding quite like that artist, and that makes 'Dragon Tiger Panacea' an exciting listen for anyone interested in a slice of truly unique pop.

Brian O'Neill