Product Description

'With Love And Squalor' is the debut album by New York indie rockers We Are Scientists. Combining the atmospherics of Interpol with the distinctive 'New York' sound of The Strokes, We Are Scientists have created a debut album that crackleswith in-your-face energy. Includes the singles 'The Great Escape' and 'Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt'.

Track Listing

1. Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
2. This Scene Is Dead
3. Inaction
4. Can't Lose
5. Callbacks
6. Cash Cow
7. It's A Hit
8. The Great Escape
9. Textbook
10. Lousy Reputation
11. Worth The Wait
12. What's The Word

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #490 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-17
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
With their daft facial hair and questionable fashion sense, tank-top sporting Brooklyn supernerds We Are Scientists resemble those eccentric mathematics lecturers one use to see on Open University in the early 1970s. Do not be deceived by this veil of foolishness for With Love and Squalor is a splendidly dexterous debut, a lubricated salvo of trim pop-punk cramming 13 songs into an honorably waffle-free 36 minutes.

Obvious touchstones include Franz Ferdinand (on fun setting) and the wit, jerk and pop inclination of XTC circa Drums And Wires and Black Sea. Exploding into action with the adrenalin swoop of "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" and "This Scene Is Dead" and taking in such other fine moments as the reggaefied "Can't Lose", the Terrorvision-meets-Buzzcocks "Callbacks" and nods to the mope-rock of The Cure on the philosophical experience-is-the-best-teacher procrastination of "Textbook".

With Love And Squalor places "We Are Scientists" in line for this years Nobel Prize for punk-pop novelty. --Kevin Maidment

Customer Reviews

Revenge of the Nerds
We Are Scientists are a New York-based three-piece that released their debut album "With Love and Squalor" in 2005. As their name suggests, they look and talk like nerds. However, We Are Scientists do know how to pen songs that should prove strong commercial hits, as they cash in on the current vogue for post-punk songs that get you up on your feet and rocking.

The album clocks in at a pretty fast 12 tracks in 37 minutes and does not pause for breath at the start until the fourth track "Can't Lose". The record is heavily guitar-laden, with nearly all of the tracks containing hooks that are well worth hearing. Murray is on lead guitar and vocals and does both quite well, while Cain (complete with the dodgey 1980s 'tache and glasses) on bass is capable of producing a strong and distinct sound, without dominating. Although American, they do occasionally sound like one of their peer bands from the UK though, e.g. The Editors or Kaiser Chiefs.

The big themes on the album are the pressing issues of the day - birds and booze. Well, lets face it, they were for most blokes when they were students and this is clearly where this band wants to pitch its tent right now.

"With Love and Squalor" opens with "Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt", a jeu-de-mot of a title which makes the track sound like something the Fun Loving Criminals would offer up, but is really about pleading with a girlfriend to stay. Its a catchy guitar-driven song, which has the feel though of being a paint-by-numbers approach to how to achieve a commercial hit at present. Take the chorus as an example of instantly memorable, but preferably forgettable lyrics:

Because my body is your body
I won't tell anybody
If you wanna use my body
Go for it, yeah


Similarly, "The Great Escape", later in the album, has a superb heavy bass sound that really gets you moving to it, whilst Murray succeeds in being able to sing quite well over the throbbing sound. However, the lyrics are once more disappointing with a chorus of:

I got a great idea
I'm gonna wait right here
I got a great idea
I'm gonna wait right here
While everything is adding up, up, up
Everything is adding up, up, up


The song I like the most though is "Textbook". It could easily be mistaken for a number off The Editors' "The Back Room". However, as a song, it shows We Are Scientists in a different light with respect to how they sound and the type of song they are capable of, with lyrics such as "smitten but not stupid" and "having every question answered isn't going to help at all" achieving a resonance for me that the other songs on the album do not. Similarly, its not quite as good, but much the same can be said of the subsequent track "Lousy Reputation", a song about a guy persuading himself not to be led by other people's low opinions of a girl that he has just met.

My overall feeling is that We Are Scientists will prove to be a popular part of the current scene of post-punk dance bands without proving to be innovators within it. This does not make them a bad band. On the contrary, there is much there to rock along to and, having seen them live twice, I can vouch for the energy they give their set.

Best indie album
We are scientists are great, the best indie band with the best indie album and i think that they are very under rated. They have a massive following, as their tour in 2006 showed, and with an album like this it isn't surprising. The whole of the album contains great rock music and i was very surprised with the skill of the drummer, as most indie bands just have an average drummer, but we are scientists have a great one, in fact the whole band are much better than most rock bands out there.
Overall: A great album with great music by a great band, basically-it's great!

Best Album of Last Year
Like my title suggests, i really really enjoyed this album! Having best sent a mix cd with 'The Great Escape' amongst the tracks i felt compelled to hear the rest of the album and i wasn't disappointed! The album kicks off with the upbeat and edgy 'nobody move...' and keeps up a funky, danceable beat all the way through, only pausing for a breath on 'textbook'. The best songs I.M.O on the this album are Great Escape, Inaction, Cashcow and Nobody Move... however the rest are all very, very good and superb listening! Would recommend this to anyone!