The band from Hamburg describes their fragrant go-out rock for young and old and those in the middle as cybergrunge.
When the press release for the release of a new album tells you that “the sound of a generation” is being shaped here, doubts are usually more than reasonable. Especially when the record screams NIRVANA LOUD from the first track onwards. The Cigarettes from Hamburg, three young men who make no secret of their styling preferences for Kurt and the like in their press photos, rock out until the rinds crack, but don’t offer any new ideas.
Now you could say, why? What was once good and relevant can still be great today. I don’t want to contradict. However, song lines like “I’m not an artist, not a poet, I just make noise from morning to night” unfortunately butcher the classic approach. On 15 short tracks, the Seattle keyboard is strummed up and down, briefly interrupted by an upbeat number (“Frontline”) and a quiet love song at the end (“Armeen”). “Drugs and drinking” (track 7) are discussed, as is the band’s penchant for already “dead musicians” (track 5).
When you listen to ELIOT you are reminded of the early 90s, where skater boys with striped T-shirts and wool hats imitated their American role models on VIVA and were dropped by the majors again after the first record. It’s definitely a lot of fun live, but I suspect that ELIOT is basically music by and for boys. That is not enough.