Little Lamb RecordingsBrooklyn-based Justice of the Unicorns is the next big thing. For reals. I can feel it. What’s not to love about this band’s second full-length release, Angels with Uzis? Let’s start with the album art, which IMHO, is possibly the best album art ever launched out into the indie world: hand-drawn cartoon-y angels armed with rainbow-striped uzis and polka dotted wings descend from the rainbowed heavens into a dark and burning city. The rapture is here. Thank god we have good indie rock to save us.
The album begins and ends with a conceptual soundtrack that can easily catch one off guard. The band chooses to begin with what sounds like an action movie soundtrack: church organs and applause coax us into the album before we are attacked by the sounds of machine guns and people screaming. Yes, this seems brutal, but Justice of the Unicorns is hardly a hardcore or metal band. These indie rockers just have a sarcastic sense of humor, one that is made evident by allusions to mythical creatures in both name and the visual culture of the band. And on that note, please Google the band so you can see the their video content — from music videos to a weird talking cat sporting a hoodie announcing the album’s release date — I promise you will be amused.
This five-piece blends indie, folk, and country elements to bring us something we have both heard and not heard before. A unique aspect to the album is the use of sound effects; they are most obvious on the opening and closing tracks, but throughout the album, the band throws in the sounds of whips and airplanes to give it that postmodern pastiche punch. The male and female vocals remind me of The Pink Mountaintops, which are then made more interesting with a sarcastic lyrical wit reminiscent of the Silver Jews.
Lyrically, the album addresses topics that every nerdy 14-year-old boy and tomboy would love: from killing evil dragons on “The Dragon's Claw - Chapter I” to flying dinosaurs on “Pterodactyl Sun.” The band also has a strange obsession with class and religion. One might read “The King Of The Trailer Park” as one gigantic stereotype: “I’m the king of the trailer park and my hair is peroxide frizzle fried…but I’m just going to sit here and talk to my velvet Elvis poster and I’ll build a beer can pyramid all alone.” Maybe these are a bunch of city hipsters, but their homage to rural music styles is still worth listening to.
My only complaint is that each track measures in at under 3 ½ minutes — so, although the album contains 13 tracks, the whole thing goes by much too quickly. I’ve found that I’m playing the album to death. I’ll probably be absolutely sick of it by the summer, but for now I’ll keep it on repeat and force everyone who enters my house to listen to it. Justice of the Unicorns could be the next Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and maybe you’ll get to catch them in some cool small venue in your town before they blow up.
Review by Ailecia Ruscin
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