Review: 24 Hours – No Party People

As the first post on Beijing Noise, it is apt to start off with somewhat of a mission statement. We plan to cover Beijing and Chinese music in away that encourages growth of the local underground music scene, yet doesn’t shy away from criticising sacred cows.

With this in mind I’ll start things in all out critic mode and say that 24 Hours’ No Party People fails to live up to the potential that the band showcases during its live performances, not to mention the hype up press releases and reviews being touted by the usual suspects. Fortunately, both for 24 Hours and those who have enjoyed one (or more) of their stellar performances, it is on the production side of the album that things fall apart, and even these missteps are mildly intrusive making No Party People somewhat of a flawed gem.

As negative as this introduction may seem, there is a lot to admire and enjoy when listening to No Party People. The Xian bred trio have been honing their musical chops for almost 5 years now, and the result is an extremely tight band with a collective ear for tunes that get people up and dancing-slash-moshing. Nowhere is this more evident than on the opening track, ‘My Sir’ (Quick note: the was an issue with the production of the album and a lot of the CD’s have the track listing mixed up. I’m reviewing this as the song order was supposed to be). 24 Hours are unashamedly influenced by the British strand of indie rock containing bands such as The Libertines or Franz Ferdinand. The non-chalant way that Zhang Chen, Ren Yilan, and Li Guan Yu sing, not to mention the churning shuffle of Li’s drums on tracks like ‘My Sir’ and ‘Earthquake’ seem almost tailor-made to draw in the NME crowd, yet it never seems contrived. But to write them off as shanzai Brit-pop would be to deny the originality of the songs contained on No Party People. ‘Underground Dancing Rules’ recalls the New York dance-punk scene from the beginning of the decade, complete with a brilliant mid-song singalong. ‘Earthquake’, on the other hand, sounds like a missing cut from Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff (muddy vocals and apathetic lyrics included).

The problem with No Party People is not songwriting or musical ability, nor is it a question of influences or intentions. It is the way in which the album has been constructed. This problem is twofold. Firstly a number of songs feel as if they were originally written apart and then thrown in a blender. This may work for some bands, but there’s no ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ on this album. Rather we get songs like ‘Fuzz’ which features an excellent intro (those whistles), a stomping, glamish, verse and chorus structure, and a post-punky middle 8. Separately they would work as foundations for great songs, but together they just sound confused.

The biggest issue with the album I have is the production. Much fuss has been made about PiL and Killing Joke alumni Martin Atkins producing the album. Not being party to the recoding process I can’t say who is to blame, but somewhere along the way someone decided that it would be good idea to introduce dub stylings to the production of the album. Now this is not something I oppose in theory, as Chinese rock music in general could do with more work on the production side of things, and Martin Atkins definitely should have the pedigree to pull this off (PiL being one of the first bands to incorporate dub into rock music). Unfortunately the result is pure tackiness. The first time I listened to the lead single, ‘Mr Stevenson’, I took out my headphones thinking that someone was doing construction work nearby. The drum delay at times doesn’t even sound like it comes from Li’s drum kit. This flaw repeats itself throughout the album (‘Your Song’, ‘He Gets A Feeling’ ) and distracts so much that it makes it hard to concentrate on song. Those three aforementioned songs are arguably the best songs in 24 Hours repertoire, and it is a shame they haven’t been captured in the best way possible. This detracts from the fact that most of the album is actually very well recorded, with a crisp guitar and bass sound and a punishing backbeat. This is probably best captured on the closing track, ‘Everyday New Beat’, with its skittering beats and the twisting and turning of Ren’s guitar and Zhang’s bass.

Credit must be given for being ambitious in the studio though. It will be interesting to see whether 24 Hours pursue some of the more atypical elements of the album. If the band could augment their sound with a more mature dub sound, rather than tacking it on as an afterthought, or the early grunge sound seen on ‘Earthquake’, it could easily cement the band as one of the innovators of China’s underground music scene.

No Party People is out now on the Maybe Mars record label.