Tokyo Police Club's A Lesson In Crime put the band in an awkward position. The seven-song EP gained a substantial amount of praise/coverage for it's less than twenty-minute run time, showing a glimpse of energetic indie pop somewhere between a dance party and a rock out that, despite it's length, made it one of the best releases of 2006. In addition to gaining an amount of notoriety, it allowed Tokyo Police Club the ability postpone their full-time jobs and academic careers in favor of a heavy tour schedule which landed them a spot with Saddle Creek Records before the boys were able to legally drink in their home country of Canada. The flip side to all this was that the expectations and demand for new material based on the smidgen of released music set an extremely high bar for Tokyo Police Club's first full-length. After the cock tease of the two-song Smith EP, and gaining much anticipation with the delay, the band finally released Elephant Shell nearly two years after their successful beginning.
Firstly, Elephant Shell is not a bad disc. In fact for the debut record of an extremely young band, I'd go as far to say it shows an amazing amount of promise. and successfully holds its own amongst any contemporaries. Working against the effort shown in the actual release is what many wanted the album to be: a piece equatable with the tunes they had become accustom to. The reason for the success of the previous material was largely based on the energy brought to every track, an energy unfortunately not sustained throughout Elephant Shell. This isn't to say the record is not without its gems, the should have been first single "Your English is Good," as well as the clap your hands jam "Tessellate," are enough to remind anyone that this is still a band to watch in the indie world. The problem being that with the attention span of most listeners nowadays, they might not be around to see if the band is eventually able to live up to their full potential.
