Indie rock is a much (and justifiably) despised musical genre in the UK but it would seem that being a band from Switzerland greatly improves the chance of credibility. That neatly takes me into this album (“How To Perform A Funeral”) by Peter Kernel.
Unlike your average indie rock band from this bejewelled island, Peter Kernel manage to inject subtlety and imagination into their music giving an result that still has punch whilst being liberally decorated with very acceptable arty moments. It does the band no harm to stray from doing the three minute single thing and certainly songs like “Happy To See You” sound like something that Amanda Lear would have done on escape from the dance floor right down to the dubious lyrical content. Maybe it is the European stylistic influences bur this album is actually quite a relaxed, if somewhat sleazy, affair with underground American bands seeming to be the starting point for much of their music - no bad thing in my opinion – and the psychotic repetition of “Radio Cowboy” reinforcing that opinion.
“How To Perform A Funeral” is an album that doesn’t quite run in a straight line so you have to give it a bit of time before it hits you. It’s sometimes art house, sometimes juvenile, sometimes oblique but always entertaining.