Allison Coil - Modern Art

Allison Coil

Modern Art
self-released; 2015

3.6 out of 5

By Jack Dickinson

I hope you like a full English breakfast of Britpop inspired harmonies, because judging by the image of a fried egg of Allison Coil’s debut mini-album Modern Art, that’s exactly what you’re going to get.

Allison Coil isn’t so much a band as it is the brainchild of indie musician and New York City native, Michael Hadley.  Although Hadley is currently in the process of putting an actual band together under this very same name for live shows, all the work that went into making this record was done by Hadley himself. He’s almost like a modern day equivalent of Don Kirschner, the American music producer and songwriter who handled all the instrumentation and production of the fictitious cartoon band the Archies in the late 1960s.

Like Kirschner, Hadley plays every instrument on Modern Art and sings all the vocals, albeit with the exception of some assistance with background harmonies from an uncredited female singer. The album seems to display a range of influences. The first two tracks, “Sucker’s Dream” and “Krispy Jane” (available for free on the group’s Bandcamp page) have the musical essence of Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters.

A self-described fan of British indie pop, you can hear Beatle-esque sounds on “Are We In Love” and psychedelia by way of Oasis on tracks like “Uncomfortable decisions” and the nonsense song “Eight People In A Raft.” One track that sounds a bit out of place with the rest of the record is “Hold Back Your Rage Now” which sounds of harmonic early 2000’s emo pop.

Another strange track on this record is “You Shouldn’t Be” which seems to mimic material off of Blur’s 1993 double LP Modern Life Is Rubbish and then just ends abruptly with nothing but silence for 10 to 12 seconds. Whether or not this was intentional on Hadley’s part is unknown.

Arguably, the best track on this album would have to be “It’s My Serenade,” a song that bathes in the rough guitar sound of early ‘90s Seattle grunge, while also once again blending in the influence of Britpop from the same period.

As far as debut album’s go, Modern Art is all right and although it’s not necessarily perfect, it ‘s a record worth listening to. All Hadley has to do now is attempt to make Allison Coil an actual band, and then they’ll be unstoppable.

official website

Tweet