His bandmate, drummer, and singer David Prowse, isn’t quite as relentlessly committed to the band’s signature black and white look. The Japandroids singer and guitarist says that for the past decade, he’s only worn and purchased black and white clothing. Aesthetics are very important to him and his band, as anyone who’s glanced at his album covers can attest. King is wearing black pants and a black T-shirt, and shortly after he arrives and pets Cooley, he changes into even tighter black jeans and a black sleeveless T-shirt. As soon as Japandroids’ Brian King gets to the studio, he starts playing with the cat, and in-between getting his photo taken, he’ll repeatedly walk over to Cooley, lounging in a director’s chair and stroke his fur. There are platinum album plaques for Lauryn Hill and Maxwell scattered about, industrial lights in the corner and a gray Bengal house cat named Cooley wandering about where he pleases. It’s not necessarily named for the Yazoo album Johnson just liked the name. However you choose to take on the world backed by “Near to the Wild Heart of Life,” the chorus assures you that your entire hometown has your back.Upstairs At Eric’s is an apartment and photo studio in midtown Manhattan owned by photographer Eric Johnson. For them, the key is letting their arena-rock DNA express itself. It's a quintessential Japandroids song, anti-nostalgia that encourages you to figure out what you want out of life and how to make it happen this moment. The gilding guitars, the echoing group vocals, the mythical retelling of their own origin story- this is all very Sunset Strip, and Japandroids have been repping Guns N’ Roses as long as they have the Replacements. A new Japandroids record feels like hero’s return rather than the incremental progress from a beloved band under these circumstances. In their absence, the supposed obsolescence of capital “R” rock and the often-suffocating earnestness of indie rock have reigned supreme in 2016. Still, five years is still a long time, and as with their previous record, Japandroids wisely recognized that simply letting life happen is their best way of updating the format, especially during a suspiciously long gestation period that included new romantic relationships for both King and Prowse and a new label.
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