OK, let's cut to the chase right away. 'No One's Better Sake' sounds absolutely bugger all like The Strokes. Which – if you've heard their eponymous debut album – is surely the point.
I say this as an opening broadside because pan-Global trio LITTLE JOY feature Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti. And, with Albert Hammond Jr working on solo records and fashion lines and Nikolai Fraiture unveiling a solo project, he might as well get in on the act too.
So what does 'No One's Better Sake' sound like? That's a little more difficult. It's an odd, but endearing, reggae-influenced lope. The first few seconds are pretty disconcerting, coming across like Animal Collective forging a new record at Jamaica's legendary Channel One, but once the recognisable melody shakes itself down, it's actually pretty enjoyable and certainly very warm: a nice, mid-fi vehicle for gentle organs, skanking guitars and Portuguese frontman Rodrigo Amarante's soulful vocals. Other than that it's defintely Moretti behind the kit, I dunno for sure who else does what as Amarante, Moretti and third member Binki Shapiro share guitar, bass, keyboards and other sundries, but 'No One's Better Sake' suggests democracy with gentle discipline at work.
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Oh, and by the way, Little Joy comes from the name of the bar down the road in Echo Park, LA, where they knocked their album together. So a case of the low-key indie superstars who play together also supping together? Could be. Whatever, 'No One's Better Sake' doesn't take itself too seriously and its' gentle nonchalence wins through as a result. It'll do very nicely indeed.
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