The Russian Futurists
The Weight's On The Wheels

The Russian Futurists return after a handful of years. Apart from the questionable cover that has little to do with the band's name and more generally with this century, that evil genius Matthew Adam Hart never seems to age. His same puerile naivety remains intact, his sugary electro-pop unchanged.

Our Toronto friend's music has nothing of the booming angular alienation of Goncharova's post-industrial man, none of Malevich's psychotic syntheses, out of space and time. Instead, the Canadian maintains a certain predisposition for melody, for the fluidity of composition, comparable to the naturalness of Kandinsky's versatility. The final touch, the sprinkle of candied fruit on the cake, is a dash of typically North American tackiness: Bukowskian, or, to stay on the artistic theme: Pollockian.

“The Weight's on The Wheels” sounds like the soundtrack to a softcore 80s porn featuring a romantic gangster. Like his shocking pink plastic knuckle duster, the songs on this album make our sense of good taste wobble. Isn’t that the whole attraction of kitsch? You stare at that knuckle duster, feeling your lunch quickly rise up your esophagus, yet deep inside you want to own it, you want to be caressed by that monstrosity.
The hues of this album come from an extravagant palette. There are the reflections of a 70s disco mirrored ball and the stroboscopic flashes of eighties electro-pop. It ranges from soul moments to funky basses, reaching the electronic bubbles of Postal Service and bursts of r'n'b. The first part of the album is the best: “Hoeing Weeds Sowing Seeds” and “One Night, One Kiss” are irresistible, “Register My Firearms? No Way!” echoes Broken Social Scene while “100 Shopping Days 'Til Christmas” is a nice r'n'b–funky hybrid. The disco-style “Tripping Horses” and the final “Horseshoe Fortune” with its shrill acoustic strummings are more than (s)passable. Give a spin to the merry-go-round of ordinary pop, it might just be enjoyable for you.