Buzzin Music Blog

Giant Jr – Wherever You Are In The World Here Are Directions Home – Album Review

Giant Jr (as represented by Giant Jr)

Giant Jr.’s last album “Fear Of Julie Andrews” sold twelve copies. They released it themselves and such was the phenomenal success and the attention that they drew to themselves (the remaining copies were given away) that their music was subsequently licensed to appear on six movies, TV shows and a Microsoft advert. Don’t ask me how.

More recently, Giant Jr’s videos have featured ‘badly behaving’ Barbie dolls, their press images are made from confectionary and their gigs include remote controlled helicopters. Now they release their new album “Wherever You Are In The World Here Are Directions Home”, recorded using home-made guitar pedals in a room off Baker Street.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because it says a lot about Giant Jr. They are a don’t-give-a-damn, take-the-piss band, who still manage to attract a fair amount of attention.

“Wherever You Are In The World Here Are Directions Home” opens with the kind of epic power-synth chords I haven’t heard since Five or N-Sync, then continues with the awesome lyrics “You are so handsome / is there a chance-some?…”.

The cheese-pop allusions and outrageous lyrics continue throughout, at points hitting the same highs as Flight of The Concords. Even electronic music comes in for a bit of a dig – the blippy voice soundbite on What Would You Do With A Million is hilariously out of place – just someone saying “Um, ok, errr, uhh, ohhh, what?”

The jabs at pop music, however, are more often than not outweighed by the jabs at ‘serious’ music. Whilst it’s pretty obviously taking the piss, Giant Jr’s pop instrumentation is fun and not badly done (see Issimo) – think of a world where Hot Chip had been found and nurtured by a funny version of Simon Cowell in the 90s.

On the other hand, the lyrics never take themselves too seriously and it’s surely a comment on what I seem to remember Franz Ferdinand complained was an over-intellectualised contemporary music scene. Certainly, when they sing about Boots&Shoes over a killer synth bass, you’re not being asked to consider, say, the current economic downturn and what it means for the future of capitalism.

“Wherever You Are In The World Here Are Directions Home” is great fun, and well worth listening to a few songs. However, at 14 songs Giant Jr set themselves a difficult task in keeping people’s interest despite their good humour and incessant fun-poking.

Go and see what you think on their MySpace. The album is out now on Try and Make Me Records.