Nickel Eye is COOL.

It's like morphing into a character from a funky noir film from the pre-disco age: Walk down the boulevard of New York. It's '73 and you are the king pimp of every corner you cross, every venue you grace with your presence and jazzy guitar chops. You are the funk-master in each gritty garage bar and everyone both loves and fears you.

It will come as no surprise that Nickel Eye is the brainchild of Nicholai Fraiture, bassist for NY's The Strokes, as the funky garage-sound that made them famous lingers in all the corners of "The Time Of Assassins". But Nickel Eye plays too sophisticatedly to be relegated mere "B-sides" album for anxious hipsters. Darker and more nuanced than anything The Strokes have offered in recent years, Nickel Eye is beyond supplement and can claim a stake as sustenance.

The other core members of this band are from South, a UK group known for it's understated, early-Jars Of Clay pop style. Between the two sides of the Atlantic, Nickel Eye is combining savoury melodies that are both smooth and gritty (it's like all-natural peanut butter, but with the possibility of finding a nugget of whiskey in your sandwich). Finding that balance between the two textures is where the challenge shall lie for the next album.

A confusing cover of Mr. Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" closes the album, and I'm a bit uncomfortable with the distant vocals that seem dichotomous to the singer's message of being ever-connected with a soon-to-be-past lover. Despite this odd epilogue, however, "The Time Of Assassins" is one of the first truly enjoyable albums of hipster-alt-rock for 2009.


Track Listing:

1) Intro (Everytime)
2) You And Everyone Else
3) Back From Exile
4) Fountain Avenue
5) This Is The End
6) Dying Star
7) Brandy Of The Damned
8) Providence, RI
9) Where The Cold Wind Blows
10) Another Sunny Afternoon
11) Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye