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It's such a shame when an otherwise perfectly enjoyable album is undermined
by one bad element, and unfortunately that's the case with this CD from Bugs
Eat Books. The songs are high-caliber indiepop with a strong Malkmussy and
Kanenbergian influence, with catchy melodies, jangling guitars, and
sprightly or stately rhythms, sprinkled here and there with Casio or steel
guitar sounds, and lyrically packed with evocative imagery. Excellent and
delightful, except...the vocals. Oh dear. Some of the songs, mostly the
slower ones, are sung in a lower register and those are okay, but in the
ones sung in a higher register, with a kind of reedy Robert
Schneider-meets-Sean Tollefson tone, the vocals are just painfully out of
pitch, and the double-tracking of them does not help. It totally pains me
to say this, because it's kind of harsh and the singer is probably a really
nice guy and everything, but man, those vocals take what would otherwise be
a really terrific, recommendable album and make it almost unlistenable. If
you can overlook that kind of thing, then by all means, enjoy the heck out
of this, but otherwise...sorry fellas! (mike.10.04)
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