Most bands try to mask their influences to a certain extent, in an attempt to make you think that everything they’re doing is wholly original, unaffected by all of the vibrations emanating from speakers in clubs and car stereos all across the world. This is also done to promote a sense of authenticity, to stimulate the belief that band X is the genuine article; a group of artists compelled to make music by creative impetus. Not the desire to mime their favorite acts in an effort to gain fame and access to chicks/dudes. A Block of Yellow doesn’t talk down their influences so much as they yell out “We like these bands. We also want to sound like them.” It would appear that they’re betting you’ll be so charmed by their unaffected pop and lyrical candor that you’ll be willing to take the risk that they’re pretenders. Hmm.

They make no effort to hide that their style is largely jacked from British invasion bands and similarly-styled alternative bands of the early 90s, which is good cause those two things are obvious from a cursory listen of Do I Do. Which, by the way, turns out not to be a tribute album to Stevie Wonder’s ten minute opus of the same name. And while the material on Do I Do does end up sounding like those things, its far from an imitation. The album’s enormously simple song structures and goofy lyrics sound like what you imagine when four guys who just like music get together to have fun and cut an album in the process. In a world of sequencers, sampling workstations, producers, mixers, and production engineers, occasionally you just want to nod your head and mutter along with the music. A Block of Yellow enables that.

There’s a line about Do I Do on A Block of Yellow’s Myspace: “The resulting twelves songs are specifically designed to hit hipster ears right where it counts.” A bold thing to say, especially considering that “hipsters,” whatever they are, consistently band together around not wanting to be identified as such. This means that either A Block of Yellow is hopelessly naive about their target demographic, or that their beyond the type of self-consciousness. I think a good listen to Do I Do will get you to lean towards the latter.

Matthew Richardson