Simian: We Are Your Friends

Part of the thrill of Chemistry Is What We Are, Simian’s 2001 debut album, was the promise it held. Four young men, steeped in ’60s psychedelica, invoke a perplexing, wacky, stoned, flawed but strongly compelling record that is exciting not just on its own merits but rich with the hope of maturity. I thought Chemistry Is What We Are was such a great album because I couldn’t wait for the next one — when Simian would pull it together, figure out their strong points (and Chemistry Is What We Are has many), and craft a brilliant instant classic. I was truly expecting them to grow into their sound and explore it fully and completely. I even loved the Simian antics — blindfolding record executives and bringing them to secret band studio/hide-outs; posing for only one sepia-toned band photograph, buried deep in the album insert, with all members in goofy Victorian suits; creating a gleefully irreverent Church of Simian in a lush and grandly silly webpage. Simian seemed interested in the mindfuck — not in being rockstars. If you didn’t catch that, just look at the animal hybrid art photographs that make up most of Chemistry Is What We Are‘s CD artwork. The band was better defined by the bizarre, sad-faced dog-llama (really, a good metaphorical manifestation of Simian’s own mutant sound) on their album cover than by any of their own faces.

Then, when you get a first glance at the cover of We Are Your Friends, Simian’s latest, it all comes crashing down. In glaring yellow, green, and pink, the bandmembers’ fresh-scrubbed faces gaze at you. Above, about ten times as big as on Chemistry Is What We Are, a single word, all caps, Simian. In true rockstar fashion, these boys want to appear as though they have arrived. But what’s arrived is a disappointing mishmash of simple electroclash beats and basslines and forceful, constant vocals. Gone is the dreaminess, the floating melodies, basically everything good about Simian’s debut.

Starting off with the somewhat infectious “la la la’s” of “La Breeze”, the album is immediately established as a pop/electroclash hybrid. But this is less a mutant sound and more of a somewhat obvious combination of influences. Where Chemistry Is What We Are took Beatles melodies and psychedelica and turned them into electronic pop epic trips, We Are Your Friends simply imitates the hard bass and drumlines of the most mainstream Neptunes productions. I might as well be listening to Britney or Justin. Simian themselves say most of their current influences now lie in American R&B, one of the most image-fixated, homogenous genres around right now (of course, with many notable exceptions; I’m talking, for example, about Brandy). Their other focus is the rapidly expanding New York-based electroclash scene, another genre that is excessively image-based and homogenized. What does this lead to? Boring music.

“Never Be Alone” steps things up a bit, and the shouted chorus “We are your friends! You’ll never be alone again! Well, come on!” is stirring and energetic. But then there’s “Skin”, with its creepy/sexy, but mostly just plain silly lyrics over an electro-easy bassline (“I need your skin”? Please. Even Miss Kitten could do better). Plus the Simian I knew wouldn’t have written a love song, or a sexy song, or whatever. They were too busy being antisocial, experimental little boys with new musical toys to worry about girls. Maybe they’ve grown up a bit, since there are two love songs on We Are Your Friends (the other being the blah “She’s in Mind”). Or maybe they just hit adolescence.

I suppose there’s still hope for Simian. Perhaps We Are Your Friends is a giant studio marketing fuck-up and on the next album Simian will get humble again. Otherwise, they’ll languish in discovering the wonders of cheap imitation, being cool, and striking poses. Who wants to listen to bratty teenagers trying to prove themselves? Not me.