The Chap, Mega Breakfast

Photo Credit: www.thechap.org

by Carrie Dagenhard
06/06/2008

Think of Mega Breakfast as a life raft in a sea of mediocre pop rock. The third album from London-based experimental pop group The Chap isn’t just catchy, it’s downright addictive. But unlike your average, run-of-the mill pop record, it’s overflowing with unpredictability. And it’s something you’ll keep on loop for more than a week.

The album combines orchestral and synthesized layers with unique vocals reminiscent of The Sea and Cake or Athens’ own Of Montreal, but not quite as tame. Part tongue-in cheek humor and part real life seriousness, Mega Breakfast is the type of album that you’ll listen to repeatedly just to grasp. Each track boasts witty and sometimes provocative lyrics that will leave you laughing during the first listen, and agreeing with by the third. Take the lyrics "Come on, come on, cloner, clone me another me / My generation needs another me," from the track “Fun and Interesting," for example.

The album is refreshingly idiosyncratic and slightly disturbing in that can’t-quit-listening sort of way. The complex recordings and variation of instruments takes an album that would be otherwise dull and yawn-worthy three tracks in, and gives it an epic sound that is much desired in an era of simple structured indie rock. It’s got new wave dance beats, mournful violin, and almost everything in-between. With all of this, one can hardly fathom what a live show with The Chap would be like.

Mega Breakfast is infectious, peculiar and confusing as hell. Give it a listen. And if you can figure it out, you’ve got one up on me.

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