15 Second Record Review - Champ by Tokyo Police Club

 "Champ" marks TPC's second full-length album, neither of which comes close to matching the brilliance on their 2006 breakthrough EP "A Lesson In Crime". Champ continues the band's evolution first marked by the previous LP "Elephant Shell" from hyper-frantic ear-worm punk inspired pop to more nuanced, deliberate songcraft not too dissimilar from the tactic taken by Weezer, except in reverse. I can't help but feel that Champ is TPC's attempt at making its own "Pinkerton", which sounds promising on paper, but falls far short. Instead, Champ is merely a bland, listless record incorporating relatively few interesting aspects of every other beige indie band of the moment. This band's maturity is into something far from what worked so well on A Lesson in Crime, which after such a bombastic and exciting start, is nothing short of disappointment. Buzz-Kill