Euros Childs may be going solo – but he’s still ploughing the same musical furrow he made his own with the Welsh cult band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.
The absence of any radical new departure is not necessarily a bad thing – Childs has been doing the oddball-psych-folk-with-electronic-frippery thing since his early teens, and few do it better. Either way, there is plenty here that will delight followers of his sometimes-irritating, sometimes-inspired parent band.
Highlights? ‘Donkey’ is addictively weird, day-glo pop – like Gorky’s best moments, it would threaten serious chart action but for its creator’s tendency to bend things deliciously out of shape. ‘Circus Time’ is a somewhat darker delight – sombre piano lines circle around a weeping violin, while sweet harmonies evoke a mood of calm melancholy. ‘First Time I Saw You’, however, is the standout – a lightly electronic piano-based ballad that stretches its gorgeous length out for eight minutes, yet still seems far too short.
One rather pertinent criticism can be levelled at Childs, though – his tendency towards a childlike simplicity may have been cute in his younger days, but by now it's starting to feel like a well-worn pose. Lines like “Ice Cream sells well when it’s hot/but it don’t sell so well when it’s not” (from ‘Costa Rita’) are so self-consciously naïve that it’s easy to picture Childs singing them with a smug, calculating expression on his face.
Still, Chops is a fine consolidation of this talented songwriter’s reputation. The Arctic Monkeys will hardly be knocked off the top of the charts – but the Mynci’s loyal followers should be eager to partake.