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Your guide to gigs, concerts and music festivals in Hong Kong
Where most bands besmirch the rock myth by having faces like smacked arses and moaning about the tour grind, this São Paolo sextet always looked like they were in the midst of a glitter-whirlwind, falling over each other with puppyish enthusiasm. But last year CSS were stretched to breaking point. Their previous manager ran off with their money and bassist Ira quit in favour of a fashion career. These fraught times are writ large on their second record. You’ll find the silly, smutty lines about Paris Hilton, art poseurs and alcohol have been replaced by lyrical sketches of overheard arguments (Rat is Dead (Rage) and attempts to quash painful memories (Left Behind).
They’ve never been shy about their love of Stefani-styled pop and Donkey certainly favours skittish keyboards and cavity-inducing choruses over the DIY chaos of their debut. There’s nothing to match the dance floor devastation of Let’s Make Love…, but Beautiful Song pitches up perfectly between giddy (handclaps!) and melancholic, while Move is Madonna meets Talking Heads. Damp squibs include Let’s Reggae All Night and Believe Achieve, which sounds like a Jane Fonda mantra. But album closer Air Painter – an ode to domesticity, hot tea and Welsh rarebit – makes up for it. Kim Taylor Bennett