Diamond Rings: "Wait & See"

You might not expect a sane Canadian to draw power from Vanilla Ice’s coattails, but that’s exactly what Toronto’s John O’Regan has done while on break from his main act the D’Urbervilles. Now sporting a look that could start a catfight between Van Winkle, Gok Wan, and Morrissey, and churning out pop so slick it makes fashion designers hang themselves, O’Regan is poised to be Torch Carrier #1 in the run for new LCD Soundsystem. However, the fact he’s been signed to Tomlab—home of the super-candid Casiotone for the Painfully Alone—should tell you this homeboy isn’t just about the makeup, and his follow-up to last year’s “All Yr Songs” isn’t your average genderbender battle cry. O’Regan’s got a voice like Chris Isaak and the temperament of a jilted librarian, making “Wait & See” an altogether more earnest kind of battle cry. In fact, it’s sober enough to be labeled just a catchy angst song sung by a man who happens to prefer eyeliner.

Face paint aside, “Wait & See” has all the feel of a very conceivable hit single paired down with guilt and self-awareness, and shows that O’Regan’s matured (or at least been dumped) since his surfacing on Hype Lighter a year ago. Against a background of slippy keyboards and straight-up guitar, Rings recounts his life as a series of daydreams that failed to mesh, the sum of which has left him with a mental warning light which he flashes to ward off a partner. “For your heart’s sake / Don’t you wait around for me to decide what I want to grow up to be / I’ll just let you down if I do decide that I just want to wait and see”. Only a man with a dress sense this vivid would wear doubt like it’s a size thirteen shoe, tripping so cooly over the cracks in his conscience it’ll makes girls want to wait for him even longer. Don’t worry though, mothers—yes he’s a rascal, and yes he’s a synth-wizard, but fuck it: can that man accessorize.