Elefant

Black Magic Show  | Kemado/Hollywood
By MIKAEL WOOD  |  May 17, 2006
2.0 2.0 Stars

Elefant
BLACK MAGIC SHOW: Genuine depth, or just a pick-up line?

These New York dance-rock dudes almost certainly formed a band to seduce babes: Argentine-American frontman Diego Garcia (once named the Big Apple’s sexiest lead singer by New York magazine) has a reputation as a ladykiller, and images of beautiful women crop up in almost all of Elefant’s artwork, perhaps attesting to past conquests. The band’s second full-length oozes the sleazy hipster sex appeal prized by scenesters who greet the afternoon by scouring www.lastnightsparty.com for compromising photographs of themselves. But the album is equally full of tender keyboard parts that suggest Garcia and his mates also aspire to the grand nerd-rock tradition nourished by New Order, who never seemed to place sex appeal high on their list of priorities. Of course, the romantic sweep of those parts accords a greater depth to Elefant’s stylized rock. And everybody knows that chicks dig depth. So maybe Black Magic’s new-found complexity is just a musical pick-up line.

ELEFANT + CHARLATANS UK + BUFFALO TOM + SECRET MACHINES + NADA SURF | May 18 | Lansdowne St, Boston | 617.228.6000

On the Web
Elefant: http://www.elefantweb.com/

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Elefant, "The Clown" (mp3)
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