Press Play – Album Reviews

Blue Skies for Black HeartsSerenades and Hand Grenades ***A fairly standard Northwestern pop-rock album in the style of Elvis Costello or The Shins, Serenades and Hand Grenades is made interesting by bits of creative instrumentation interspersed sporadically throughout the record. Though the name of both the record and the band might make one think it’s going to run in the genre of groups like My Chemical Romance or their dreadful equivalent, Serenades actually begins very pleasantly. The first song, “Siouxsie Please Come Home,” is easily the highpoint of the album and exuberantly demands repeat listens. The track “Little White Lies” is clever and fairly rocking despite being full of tired anti-cocaine euphemisms. Unfortunately, Blue Skies for Black Hearts can’t quite keep up the enthusiasm throughout the span of the whole record, and songs like “A World Without Love” and “I Wish You Were Still Around” provide a degree of kitsch that is hard for me to get interested in. Overall, a pretty good record from an up-and-coming local band–just be careful about reading too deeply into the lyrics. SarandonKill Twee Pop **1/2To fully understand the experience of listening to Sarandon, the United Kingdom’s most recent spazz-pop export, it helps to remember what part of the world this trio hails from. Britain is notorious for propagating some of the most banal music trends in recent memory, even to the point that I’m a little cautious about listening to new British indie bands these days. I don’t want to listen to the Arctic Monkeys or some other shite.

The term “twee pop,” I’m guessing, refers to the eerily gleeful indulgence of bands like Architecture in Helsinki and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that probably wouldn’t suffer from being taken down a peg or two. But whether this will happen at the hands of Sarandon is a whole other question. Less than 30 minutes long, Kill Twee Pop might be a little too short to inspire any real intra-genre violence, but they do have a unique sound. The short, hyper songs that compose the bulk of this record are enough to hold your attention but never really get stuck in your head; it’s more like a quick jab of interesting lyrics or sharp guitar every once in a while than any real song structure. The tempo of the singing is reminiscent of Jello Biafra, but with a much more generic timbre to it. Worth a listen, but honestly, once is probably enough. Good luck with that mission, though. -Reviews by Ryan M. McLaughlin