The male and female British dance-punk duo finally release the followup to their hit debut album from 2008 that went Platinum in the UK and Ireland. The album was released in the UK two weeks ago and is available to U.S. customers today.
The band's sophomore release was originally slated for 2010 but after disagreements with their label they trashed that supposedly dance-heavy followup and released this version of the album instead. Katie White again handles the lead vocal duties in her double-dutch style of warbling while Jules de Martino doing the majority of the instrumentation.
Unfortunately, the band doesn't exhibit much growth on album number two. While the sound is mostly similar to their debut album; the hooks are less catchy, the guitar riffs are louder but less engaging, and the melodies have a generic 80's new wave feel which makes the tunes seem more dated than fresh.
Interestingly, one of the dance influenced tracks, "One by One," leftover from the original configuration of the album is one of the brightest highlights from the disc while the distinctly lo-fi, chamber pop-sounding "Day to Day" being the other surprising, atypical track.
Nowheresville ends up being a mostly disappointing followup that frustratingly provides a brief glimpse of the greatness that could have been but instead we get weak sounding tracks that recall their first album but without any of the shine or creativity.
Score: 5/10
Song(s) to Sample: "Hit Me Down Sonny" and "One by One" [sample it below]
The rock quartet from Louisiana had so much fun covering Harry Nilsson songs in concert that they decided team up with Allison Bohl to release an EP of four songs by the great singer/songwriter.
First up on the album is the well known "One (Is The Loneliest Number)" which has a stripped down melody to create a dark, industrial version of the song similar to Trent Reznor's recent cover of Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song," but with less of the excessive guitar feedback Reznor seems to have fallen in love with in recent years.
The real gems are the next two songs, "He Needs Me" and "He's Large," both of which were first sung by Shelly Duvall on the Popeye original movie soundtrack and this time around are the two tracks featuring Bohl's vocals whose timber is eerily similar to Duvall's. The melodies stay pretty true to the original with slightly more post-production work to give the tracks an even greater ethereal feeling. The album's closer is a song Neko Case originally released and made popular titled "Don't Forge Me" which is toned down with lumbering guitar riffs and a slower tempo that turns the song into a depressing country ballad.
The first three songs on the EP are all worth the price of admission (which shouldn't be that costly given the EP barely lasts 15-minutes) although I would have loved if "Don't Forget Me" were replaced by another Nilsson hit like "Everybody's Talking" or "Coconut" as their version of the Neko Case song doesn't really bring anything new to the table while a modern version of "Everybody's Talking" seems long overdue.
The originals are still the better versions but never in my life did I think I would be enchanted by songs with a singer doing her best Shelly Duvall imitation as I was on this release.
Song(s) to Sample: "One" and "He Needs Me"
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