Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Summer Olympic
Games. They've already established their status as a newly industrialized
country (NIC), plus bolster one of the world’s greatest international football
teams. Musically, what does Brazil offer to the modern world? Well apart from
samba, the most famous Brazilian export has to be CSS, followed by Móveis.
Subburbia plan on taking the Western world by the balls when they complete
their transition from an underground Brazilian indie band to a worldwide phenomenon.
Listing The Stone Roses and (MRD favourites) Iceage as musical influences,
Subburbia have taken the first step on the long and high staircase.
"Blue Jeans" is Subburbia's punk rock cover of Lana Del Ray's string heavy original. Instead of blatantly disastrous lyrics, Lana Del Ray's "Blue Jeans" is at least moderately interesting. Think back to "Cola", what was it Lana Del Ray said? Oh yeah: "My pussy tastes like Pepsi cola." With Lana Del Ray firmly grounded as a pop artist, this track makes for an unusual cover from an Iceage influenced Brazilian outfit. Subburbia suck the sophistication and feminism out of "Blue Jeans" by investing their fast paced noise sounds and stark vocal harmonies. They're a band that will no doubt provoke traditional Brazilian Christians with their upside cross imagery. We all know the Satanism behind the use of the upside cross is fictional; in fact, it was to show humility and unworthiness to Jesus Christ. All the 14 year old girls buying inverted cross t-shirts seriously need to use what intelligence they actually have to research and read. The difference between Subburbia and these clothing culture plebeians is that Subburbia are using the image as an anti-Christian symbol.
Subburbia's cover of "Blue Jeans" is one of the best pop covers I’ve
heard by a punk / noise orientated artist in quite some time. Pop is an
incredibly hard genre to pull off when covering, but Subburbia make it look
easy. They certainly put their own sound on "Blue Jeans" just by using
an electric guitar. The drumming is furious and the duet of noise guitars works
on both the chorus and verses. It's an interesting combination of fast punk
rock and indie rock. The vocals fail to hit the mark on the chorus; however
that was to be expected. It's always interesting hearing a band that has been
influenced by European alternative rock. Whether Subburbia can gain the fanbase
they so badly need both in Europe and Brazil will depend on how they go about
releasing and promoting their debut album, whatever path they decide to go
down, there's certainly more to come from Subburbia.
~Eddie
