Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Household Goods
Wrong on four counts…
[Video][Website]
[5.91]
Iain Mew: I guess if you’re actually called Orlando Higginbottom, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs doesn’t sound so ridiculous. Anyway, this song does one particular thing brilliantly. He sings in a shy and withdrawn way like he can barely bring himself to. Early on he musters “You look shit all alone”, “I could be the dog to your bone… or something”, like he’s Angela Chase, or something. The second time round he only gets as far as “I could be…” before trailing off to be replaced by a delicate synth solo and instrumental rush of hope. The overall effect is that he is saying “here is what I want to say, but I’m too shy, so I’m going to let my beautiful electronic music do it for me; here is my heart”. It’s a dangerous gambit, but the music is good enough for it to come across as charming instead of lazy.
[8]
Pete Baran: I like gloopy synth dance songs as much as the next person (cue the editor to sandwich me between two haters) but there is a point where underpowered vocals beg to be put out of their misery. This song passed it in the first line, and it is quite possible the singer was put out of his misery, and continued bored, bleeding to death until his last breath was spent. All the marks are for the pleasing backing.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Like a Fred Falke remix, but without hooks. Or third-rate Junior Boys. Not since some mallpunk band I can’t be bothered to find an example of has the gulf between band name and output been so wide.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: The overcharged, super-saturated aesthetics of mainstream pop are leaking into bedroom pop. Unless I’m hearing this totally wrong.
[5]
Anthony Easton: This is so lovely, abstracted, a little bit eight bitty, but not really that much, and small–a collection of discreet movements stitched together with a kind of elegant reductive tendency. I can see the plain domesticity of it, but nothing TOTALLY ENORMOUS.
[6]
Will Adams: Behind the awkward advances, earnest compassion, and nervous tics of an insecure young man at a party lies a hot emotion bursting at the edges, screaming with a passion rivaling that of the most confident guys in the room – guys who have already made their move. “Household Goods” takes every time I’ve wanted to approach a girl – but backed down out of self-defeating fear and fastened myself to the wall, my eyes flitting to the floor – and compresses it into three and a half heartbreaking minutes.
[9]
Patrick St. Michel: This song is painfully millennial, clumsy and noncommittal with words but still brimming with emotion. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ Orlando Higginbottom’s attempts at flirting range from awkward jabs (“forgive me if I’m wrong/but you look shit/all alone”) to stabs at romantic imagery (“I could be the dog to your bone”). Yet he crucially takes a second of silence after that line and then tacks on “…or something.” It’s the sort of emotional-self-defense tactic 20-somethings raised on irony and sarcasm rely on…see also the “maybe” in Carly Rae Jepsen’s big summer single…to make emotions seem more in control, less messy. Higginbottom’s pulsing electronics, though, betray his words because they surge with energy, and also sound a tad awkward as well (the toy-laser sounds zip off all over the place). Higginbottom tries to cover up his feelings, but they always float to the top.
[9]
Alfred Soto: I like Junior Boys but nobody wants them as an influence? Do you?
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Inessential indietronica, as playful, childish and plastic as the toy brontos that anyone who names their band Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs probably still plays with. As further evidence, I submit this lyric: “I could be the dock to your boat… or something.” Maybe she’ll share her Lunchables!
[6]
Jer Fairall: Mild chip.
[4]
Michaela Drapes: Delicately frothy and eminently likable, I can’t help of think of all the things I hear rattling around in here. And, that’s not a bad thing, really — one could do worse than add a bit of squelchy rococo dance-y bits to the templates created by Junior Boys (with a major hat-tip to Arthur Russell). It’s brainiac dancefloor make-out music.
[7]