Psycho Babylon

Review by Darren Gawle

Just when you thought that Nettwerk's ulterior motive was to turn the youth of Canada into a bunch of compliant and complacent denizens of Vancouver's cafe instant-culture with their brand of insipid atmospheric pop (the great Nettwerk-Starbuck's conspiracy: remember kids, you heard it here first...), along comes the best band to grace Nettwerk's roster in the last four years.

Sounding familiar to anyone who's a Zolty Cracker fan, the Ids make a name for themselves by virtue of Sean Macdonald's refreshingly free-thinker's point-of-view -- evidently, Sean's seen the face of post-modern revolution, and he thinks it's a joke.

"Do you remember the summer of 1999?
Do you remember dropping acid and going to a riot?
Do you remember not giving a shit what it was about?
Do you remember avoiding each other's glances?"

That's from "Summer of 1999," a tense piece which should make Vancouver's population of flavour-of-the-month activists deservedly uneasy. "Rainbow Enemy" also carries the tone of anti-revolution further by sending up Neil Young-style "the man can't bust our music" slogans and sounding terminally bored with them in the process.

Not that the Ids are totally humourless: "Atomic City" is an exercise in eighties synth-pop, while "Locked in a Room" is a pretty, wistful melody which features a touchingly inept trumpet solo. That, and "Pimps in It" rocks the house like a bunch of gremlins let loose in a marimba factory.

Psycho Babylon may not get the exposure it deserves, and more's the pity because it's one of the most important local products of recent years.