The Whip - X Marks Destination [Bonus Tracks] (CD)

All Music Guide

The Whip straddle the electronic/rock divide with a wider stance than most of their late00s hipsterdance contemporaries. Their debut may be titled X Marks Destination, but their stylistic aim isn't as deadly focused as that might suggest: targets veer across the map from the romantically epic pop of "Sirens," with its a rosetinted, Hollywoodready sheen, to the gritty, instrumental electro of breakout single "Divebomb," which layers hypnotically swirling synth bleeps with overdriven, Justicestyle guitars to fashion an effectively frothy if vaguely perfunctory banger. The bulk of the album falls somewhere in between these poles, lashing feverish, fizzy electronic workouts to guitarsforward, quasipunkish pop slabs that try, mostly successfully, to have it both ways. These work best when the melodies are upfront and gleaming, as on "Sister Siam" and the swooning, unflinchingly New Orderish "Frustration." They suffer significantly when the obnoxiously inane lyrics become too prominent, part...icularly on the execrable "Save My Soul," or whenever the band latches on to empty, ad nauseum catch phrases like "lights down in the dark" or "I can feel the heat" or "I wanna be trash" (a curiously dated, "Loser"like grungeera sentiment, albeit married to a pummeling postpostpunk stomp.) And otherwise they tend to fade into indistinct, lackluster neutrality. Still, even if their wouldbe blazes burn with a reflected fire and a somewhat mannered, overfamiliar handmedown hedonism, the Whip are at least competent synthesists of simple pleasures, with an unexpected sweet tooth and enough vitality to offer the bloghouse constituency some Agrade kindling for latedecade dancefloors. [The four bleepy electro remixes appended to the U.S. edition are at once more thrilling and more tiresome than the album proper, injecting a good deal more aggression and strangeness than the original versions manage to muster.] - K. Ross Hoffman, All Music Guide Read more Less