Is Tropical - Native To

Shimmering into the sun comes Is Tropical’s debut, ‘Native To’ a perfect slice of sun-bleached euphoria. The London three piece may play live dressed as outlaws / terrorists (matching black bandanas over their mouths) and have merchandise referencing Palestine but a militant streak isn’t standing in the way of their pop-sensibility it seems. Nor is it obstructing the path to making already classic music videos, with the kids + animation + drugs + guns combination adding up to an ACME / Scarface backing for standout song, ‘The Greeks’. Even then they’ve got the time and sheer good taste to get one of Britain’s most exciting and intriguing acts, Breton, to remix it for the single. So all they need is a fantastic album, right?

Opener ‘South Pacific’ is the perfect introduction to the clattering guitars and chirpy synths the album never strays too far from, albeit in differing ratios. An upbeat track, with a singalong chorus, tales of fire rivalling water, within a minute or two it sets the album up for its eccentric sway, its crowd-pleasing swagger. Second track ‘Land of the Nod’ showcases a softer electro side coming across a bit like Metronomy singing a lullaby. ‘Lies’ is the album’s first real moment of deficiency, lacking the intrigue of Is Tropical’s other songs; it all goes a bit Fenech Soler. That wouldn’t be bad in your average band but for a band who can make a song as inch-perfect as fourth track, ‘The Greeks’ it’s almost criminal. From the moment the racing guitars (like the soundtrack to a western set one hundred years in the future - on Mars) drop into the pulsing synths, the track has you, a grip only tightened by the singalong chorus of ‘You only get what you give away, You’ll only get it if you give it away’. This song has the potential to be 2011s ‘Last Nite’ or ‘Helicopter’, at very worst it deserves to be this year’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. After that Is Tropical mine a quieter, cuter side for a few tracks, taking up the traditional indie rock pining for ‘I’ll Take My Chances’ a song to sit alongside the Macabees and Mystery Jets of the world. At the very end though the album rediscovers its bite, as eleventh tracks go ‘Zombies’ is a stunner, an insistent march through what’s best, if not particularly briefly, described as tribal-shoegaze-electro leading to the ridiculous but unmissable closer ‘Seasick Mutiny’. A song that anyone can sing, assuming they can follow ‘Heave’ with ‘Ho’.

It’s really hard to dislike this album, even if some would say its doing things that have been done before, it just seems like its having more fun, crafting more varied songs. Sure, it lacks momentum for its mid-section but those moments of introspection only serve to demonstrate an appreciation for delicacy. Almost any criticism you could level at this album has a counter. Instead, the greatest fears for Is Tropical may be that they’re lost to Topshop mixtapes or Skins adverts or that Kitsune Maison compilations pour them into a small pond of startlingly similar acts, as if Kitsune Maison would do such a thing! Is Tropical deserve time to develop without being pigeonholed, without being overused and spread too thin and without being broken on the waves of hype; I hope they get that time.

As immediate as its best tracks are, even on repeated listens ‘Native To’ stills holds together, an eclectic melting pot of ideas that still maintains a very definable style containing a handful of blistering, exhilarating songs. Songs that deserve to make a bigger mark than pointed heels on underage indie dancefloors.