polaroids of androids

The 'snatch licking' two finger gesture that adorns the cover of Van She's debut record says a lot about the contents of the album. It's tempting to describe it as juvenile, but that would be offensive to anyone under 18 years of age, even those who spend their time making home made pipe bombs to explosively retire their neighbour's letterboxes. This is foolish, predictable, one-dimensional garbage. It's void of any emotion or evidence of creative expression, with the group replacing all human musical qualities with a bunch of uneventful pop packages that are ready to be easily translated into television commercials.

The strong build up of the opening track, Memory Man, almost had me fooled. Even when the buried vocals come into the mix I was starting to think that the group had taken a giant leap forward, adding some much needed weight to their sound. The predictable synth-led chorus harmonies are then added in and, as is the case with the rest of the record, any lifelike qualities of the track are extinguished.

While I don't particularly love the music of current indie-disco-electronica heavyweights, Cut Copy and The Presets, I can still appreciate their value within the local scene. Their songs aren't deep oceans of emotive discovery, but they do at least attempt to create a connection with their audience or 'target market'. Van She on the other hand seem far too happy simply providing the listener with a familiar arrangement that they can tap their feet to. It's this inescapable feeling of emptiness across the 46 minutes of V that makes it such a painful experience.

Without a doubt this is the worst album we have heard this year.