Neon Neon Stainless Style WB rating out of 100

Filling a record full of guest performers is generally a pretty decent marketing technique – it has people buying the album for names they know and at the same time it’s an easy introduction to the artist printed on the jacket. But is letting each individual guest vocalist stamp their signature on your own work really the best way to sell your own message?

Neon Neon are a two piece (with friends) out of LA who have created an album that borrows the personalities of its guest to provide punch to the duo’s existing, and fairly fresh, electro pop sound. Local friends of the band, as well as those from around America and the world feature throughout Neon Neon’s Stainless Style to create a short lived mash-up between retro sounding pop and various modern urban styles.

However, the band’s lack of vocal identity is not the only problem in Stainless Style’s identity crisis. As an amalgamation of both spirited pop and hardcore urban – the former draws upon synth and electronica to create a similar style to Hot Chip whilst also being reminiscent of cheesy 80s synth pop; the latter consists of fully fledged rap and R&B – Stainless Style splits evenly between the two genres, making it a release that caters for neither electro or rap fans. Strengthening this confusion considerably is the lack of subtle transition between styles – the inspirational ‘film soundtrack’ moments of ‘I Told Her On Alderaan’ turning sharply into smuttily R&B in ‘Sweat Shop’.

Spank Rock and Sean Tillmann (Har Mar Superstar) appear on ‘Trick for Treat’ to create a mould of their own work – in very much a turn taking fashion. Hardcore rap gets another turn later with Fatlip’s appearance on ‘Luxury Pool’, and so does the urban R&B of Yo Majesty on ‘Sweat Shop’ – a track complete with the cliché break of seductive dialogue that seems almost mandatory in songs of this nature. The only appearance that genuinely warrants the term “guest” and not “takeover” is that of Cate LeBon who duets with singer Gruff Rhys on the electronic extravaganza ‘I Lust You’. The pair’s voices – LeBon’s high and sweet and Rhys’s rough and electronically altered – are undoubtedly well matched for each other.

Somewhere beneath this hodgepodge of genres is a running theme about John DeLorean, the founder of the De Lorean Motor Company. Regardless of whether the album is supposed to be a concept or not, the songs are much more likely to impress on their own than as a collective. ‘I Lust You’ and ‘Raquel’ stand out as electronic pop favourites and will be enjoyed by retro pop and rock fans – the latter easily remembered for its Freddy Mercury style wailing. Those seemingly unwelcome urban moments will also manage to stand tall as individual tracks, especially the N*E*R*D-esque ‘Trick For Treat’, which packs clever rhymes and super fast vocals.

From the listeners perspective Gruff Rhys and Boom Pip have created a confused record with Stainless Style. The only core to the album is a supposed concept and even that has to be explained to be understood. Musically their inclusion of guests has done little more than convince the listener that they’re either undecided on direction (or perhaps unsuccessfully trying to mash genres). And while Neon Neon have concocted a pretty decent selection of tracks here, I doubt anything as patchy as Stainless Style is going to draw these two utterly different worlds together.