Operator Please - Yes YesVindictive

Tue 11th Dec, 2007 in Music Reviews

Operator Please
Yes Yes Vindictive
Virgin

There’s something to be said for the vigour of youth. In the case of teenage sensations Operator Please’s highly-anticipated debut album, it means that all restraint is abandoned in lieu of a wonderfully effervescent selection of tunes that disregard any pretensions of holding back. Operator Please give their all on Yes Yes Vindictive, and the album is all the better for it.

Amandah Wilkinson shows, in the course of these thirteen tracks, that she has all the melodic sensibility that makes the best pop songs stand out amidst the dreck found amongst current pop acts. She uses her voice as the melodic base throughout Yes Yes Vindictive, singing up a storm. Meanwhile, the keyboards of Sarah Gardiner and violin of Taylor Henderson act as separate melody lines in themselves, thus allowing Wilkinson’s guitar to very much contribute to the rhythm.

It’s just as well as the bass and drums are virtual spectators on Yes Yes Vindictive. It’s something that’s commonplace on so many debut albums, oft rectified thereafter when the band has played live a lot more – when they realise that a solid backbone is vital to the live show. The basic rhythmic patterns found here merely adds to the sense of melody overload, which is wonderful to hear, especially on more spaced-out numbers such as Two For My Seconds.

That’s one of the few moments where the band slow down their pace. It’s the pop-punk styling of singles such as the addictive Just a Song About Ping Pong, Get What You Want and Terminal Disease that are what are going to draw most fellow teens in to the sound of Operator Please; leave the maturing for later. There’s a brilliant sense of energy in these tracks that is undeniable, but the strong melodies are what stick with you after they’ve finished, lodging the tunes in your brain.

Operator Please’s debut album is far from perfect, but the catchy tunes that appear on it indicate that the band are not going to be flash-in-the-pans, with plenty of room to move their sound into the future.