OK so Chocolate Robots is something that you might name a band in high school, and it's hard to get past the cliché there, but I urge you to try. This is weird Canada music, which is one of my new favorite genres. Why are they making such bizarre music in Canada? Is there moose in the water? Is it the universal healthcare? Is hockey finally going out of style and the pent-up aggression being pointed towards a drum set, a bass, a guitar, and a microphone? Who can say, but Chocolate Robots apparently all work in their dad's pizza parlor in some small town in Ontario, and one day when they were rifling through his stuff they came across some recording equipment, and decided to fuck around.
Somewhere along the lines, someone must have given them some Violent Femmes, and some Frankie Valli, and a copy of John Waters' Cry-Baby. They consumed all those things equally, turned on their recording equipment, and vomited out what they thought all those things added up to. What we get is a juicy, sparkling pop song which oscillates between the everyday and the camp. At first it seems so regular: boom-pah-pah beat, song about love, standard verse chorus verse. But what about those vocals stretched into their highest register? Those are weird. And what about this extremely literal interpretation of bubblegum, where we actually have recordings of bubbles popping in the background? That's kind of weird too. Seriously, what's up in Canada?
Chocolate Robots, “Summer Krushhh”
Chocolate Robots' self-released PiZzA fAcE is available now on Cheeky Monkey.
