Css Suxxx?

Bonkers Brazilian Bopsters CSS have made their new single, Rat Is Dead (Rage), available for free on their website. (How clever! Someone should tell Chris Martin about this amazing idea, etc). It is literally quite good, and you should do the whole right-click-save-target-as thing now.

The success of the indiepop scenester's first album means they've been able to spend some proper money on coke and whores the follow-up. So what do you get for your dollar?

Well, sonically, the single is a retread of live favourite Patins. It bursts into life with a barrage of scratchy distorted guitar and that not-talking-but-not-singing thing that Lovefoxxx does so well.

The lyrics have something to do with a girl "smashing all the glasses on the mirror" and a dead rat - i.e. it's batshit crazy. But the gargantuan singalong chorus ("I know, I know, I know he will never hurt you again") is bound to go down well in the moshpit come festival time.

But the rough edges that gave CSS their quirky lo-fi charm have been smoothed out somewhat. Everything is a bit too in time, a bit too polished, a bit too whatever the opposite of ramshackle is (unramshackle? eweshackle? shackalackaboom?)

My guess is that CSS have ironed out their creases in an attempt to get mainstream radio play, so it'll be interesting to see how the single fares. As I write, it hasn't popped up on the Radio One playlist and XFM has only added it to their upfront list.

What do you think? Does it deserve to be heard more widely?

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