“I’m not a lover, I’m a fighter – and I will burn your house down.”
And so begins The Penguin League, the first album from Anarctica Takes It! a precocious lot of indie-poppers from Santa Cruz, California. The Penguin League is unapologetically messy, lo-fi and certainly uneven; but, it’s also gloriously energetic and disarmingly honest. Boy-girl harmonies bounce over folksy instrumentation which occasionally, almost recklessly, throws in violins, glockenspiels, hand-claps and a hearty brass section.
When it works, it works to perfection; songs such as “Circuits” or “Antarctica” are pure slices of pop abandon. When it doesn’t, it’s still at least three rungs above better-known acts such as Badly Drawn Boy or The Tyde. Antarctica Takes It! are carelessly heartfelt which is refreshing in its lack of self-consciousness. Through either beauty or blemishes, The Penguin League is a promising debut.
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