Listen to the sound of a cockatrice doing the two-step as Cyclops makes eyes at siren who sings along from a Babycham pool while the loup-garou adjusts his chest hair and medallions in the bronze-tinted mirrored disco walls. Bigfoot's got his dancing shoes on and a minotaur bouncer watches from the balcony as unicorns gallop down the stairs to reach the dancefloor. Stomp, stomp, stomp - drinks on the bar tremble and quiver as Rockblocker approaches. Popical Island have given us mythical creatures before but the latest album to spawn in the form of Tieranniesaur is no chimera.
After Rockblocker's weighty bass and rousing chorus there's a continental shift to Candy with shimmyshaking, tropical percussion. Annie Tierney and her husband Padraig also write the songs for their indie-pop band Yeh Deadlies and the same ingredients of songwriting are all there but where the Deadlies are as warm and comforting as builder's tea, Tieranniesaur is all about the exotic flavours, made for nightclubs and cocktail glasses, pink and blue neon. They retain the melodic flourishes and inflections, keen ears for detail and witty lyrics but have changed direction from songs to tend angry hearts, veering off to the domain of dance.
Sketch! Marked the spot of Popical Island's buried treasure when it appeared on the Compilation #1 last year and still sounds fresh and funky despite regular plays across the lists of Irish music adherents. It's followed by the darkly edgy I Don't Stop, snappy snare and purring bass dominating for the duration of 2m31s and it will at first seem a little lost set between Sketch! And Azure Island but is one of those gems that make the ears prick to attention when it crops up. It must be said that it would have been better served if placed later on in the album as there's a bit of front-loading with the first six songs all being truly exemplary listens and placing I Don't Stop after Here Be Monsters further on would maybe let it make more of an imapact.
Azure Island is the shape-shifter, switching the album's pace to a regular, slow beat at first, something that wouldn't sound out of place in grimy South London club. Soft harmonies beguile but then its nature changes and it picks up only to drop off again. The cameo appearance of No Monster Club's Bobby Aherne as a rapper is a startling inclusion that works suprisingly well. A personal favourite comes with In The Sargasso - a favourite word that has won me over with its gorgeously bright intro that develops into a rapid, uptempo disco number with a superb singalong style that positively gleams.
Pretty Girl String Quartet is the closest in nature to the Yeh Deadlies style and opens with gorgeous synths and the hi-lo harmonies of Padraig and Annie. Bass is a particularly huge sound on the whole album and Ian McFarlane's lines really deliver, pulling and pushing each song to fine finish. Although the majority of songs are rather short, they push them to the limit with this number and the next: Here Be Monsters, a fairly loose form in a steady-beat, heavy bass number with a fantastically snazzy climax which brings to mind that other magical marriage of Tom Tom Club and the best of the Eighties.
I Tink UR Strange cannot really compare to Monsters but Annie's vocal is super-cute and there's a lovely fluid section with a sort of plainitive guitar sounding out like a lost gull in the fog, before the chorus finale. The one single track that I actively dislike is the closing number Remember My Name, finding its cowbell and vocals irksome and it just generally seems incongrous amongst the better material on offer.
I cannot pinpoint another female artist that can really compare to Annie Tierney and this new work with Tieranniesaur, clever and yet fun, but to jab a finger on the musical map, you'd find her somewhere between Tom Tom's Tina Weymouth, Bjork and Feist. In this territory she's Tieranniesaur Rex - disco queen.
