Ohbijou - Beacons (Album)

For a few years now, it’s been a widely-acknowledged fact / cliché in indie-land that Canada is home to a disproportionately high number of bands who are gently crafting elegant baroque pop. You wonder what they put in the water over there. Or perhaps the sneaky beggars did a surreptitious deal with Old Nick to make ‘Canadian’ such a rich and identifiable sub-genre.

Whatever means they employed to nurture such a handsome crop of bands, they’re still creaming off the dividends. Take Ohbijou as a case in point. Having started off as the solo endeavour of singer Casey Mecija, the band have gradually snowballed into a seven piece, and in this shape they arrive with their second album Beacons.

Although it’s a full band piece, on first impression Beacons appears to be little more than a vehicle for Mecija’s beautiful, delicate voice. Scratch the surface though, and it becomes clear that the whole album has been painstakingly assembled piece by piece like a ship made from matchsticks, with Mecija’s voice being draped gently across a framework of lovely cello, piano and guitar. The gentle hooks gradually snare you further with each listen, like a more sedate Land of Talk (Also Canadian, naturellement).

Of course, the fact that it is so lovingly crafted does not automatically make Beacons a good album. What does make it a good album is its emotional impact. It’s actually a little difficult to get past the loveliness of the vocals at first, and focus on the songs themselves, but once you do, it’s difficult not to be moved by the plaintive romanticism therein.

The album finds its emotional centrepiece in it’s sparsest song, Thunderlove. The strings are dropped down a notch and we are left with just Mecija backed by a simple acoustic melody, delivering the song’s opening couplet in typically heartbreaking fashion, ‘Give me some loving / ‘Cos I’ve been thinking about dying under heavy snow’. This is one of countless examples of the affecting quality of her fragile vocals.

Very occasionally, Ohbijou emphasise the orchestral element to their sound. Black Ice and New Years are both stirring examples of the impact they can make when they crank things up even a little bit. There are other instances (albeit scarce ones) where Mecija really casts off her inhibitions and her little girl lost voice soars into something more powerful. It’s a shame really that they don’t submit to these urges a couple of more times, because it might stop the album from running out of steam a little towards the end. It could also infuse a splash of variety and lift Beacons from being a very good album to a great one.

That said, there’s no denying that this is a beautiful, warm record. Ohbijou might not have made their classic yet, but they’re on the right path.

7/10

Little Boots - Hands (Album)

Pop and alternative music have a funny old relationship really. On the whole, there’s an uneasy sense of détente, all the while buttressed by a smug sense of superiority on the part of the ‘serious’ music fans, which occasionally gives way to blasts of outright snobbery.

But, we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Well-executed pop music is a an appallingly underrated artform. Its purveyors, therefore, deserve to be cherished.

So step forward Victoria Hesketh, aka Little Boots. The latest in a seemingly endless line of young female singers emerging with Human League records in their hands and one foot either side of the line between pop and credibility. The BBC didn’t know just how prescient they were when they named her ‘Sound of 2009’. Still though, it’s a sight better than the slew of Adele-alikes who crawled out of the woodwork in 2008 though.

In what has rapidly become an overcrowded genre, Little Boots has left a pretty high watermark. Hands is a strong pop record. While it loses marks for occasionally coming across a touch formulaic, it regains them in abundance for the sheer potency of its hooks. Almost every song is a single in waiting, with an outrageously catchy chorus lurking around every corner.

At times the vocal delivery is so languid that it’s clear she knows the pace of the songs will carry her through. Other instances see her overflowing with girlish giddiness as she threatens to drown us in syrup. ‘Mathematics’ and its metaphor-laden sweetness should have even the most ardent Wolf Eyes fan smiling a little, whether or not they care to admit it.

All the while, she is safe in the knowledge that the songs are enhanced by the muscle of the backing tracks underpinning them. The electro flourishes give the record power and texture, and drive the choruses further into your skull.

Hands is surprisingly cohesive when you consider the raft of people involved in its production. Perhaps in a way though it’s consistency is also its undoing. At times it comes over a touch predictable. As good as ‘Symmetry’ is, the Phil Oakey collaboration is just a little too on the nose. And it runs out of steam a little towards the end as Hesketh’s constant reference to her heart wear a bit thin.

All of which is a shame, really, because the last couple of songs might leave you with the false impression that Hands is a bad album, when in actual fact it’s a very good one. The album may not be perfect, but it contains so many moments of unbridled pop joy that you can forgive it its flaws. It’s a tough act for the Class of ‘09 to follow in any case.

Passion Pit - Manners (Album)

Here in the year 2009, we all lead such frantic lives. We simply can’t take everything in, so sometimes certain things need helpful little aide memoirs attaching to them. Like when you introduce two people: ‘This is Dave. He’s a policeman’.

We’re doing it increasingly with records too. Look at one of last year’s biggest word-of-blog successes, Bon Iver. How many reviews of For Emma, Forever Ago did you read that didn’t mention it being recorded in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere? And the same goes for our present subject, Passion Pit. Their excellent debut EP Chunk of Change, as we all know by now, was originally recorded as a Valentine’s gift for Michael Angelakos’ girlfriend.

Such codas can on occasion be beneficial to a record, enhancing it’s recognisability or even it’s enjoyability. But what of such an album’s follow-up? Without a helpful cover story, the danger is that it can be lost in the ultra-saturated and fickle music market. Well, the solution for a band is perfectly simple: Make the music speak for itself.

That was the challenge facing Passion Pit with the release of first album Manners. And it was a challenge to which, by and large, they have risen to admirably. They have given us an album which screams ‘POP’ louder and clearer with every soaring chorus and every bouncing synth. Though much-maligned, and often taken for granted, well-executed pop music is one of the great pleasures of the world.

When at its best, Manners is euphoric. ‘Little Secrets’ is a perfect illustration of this. It’s dense electro textures underpin a child chorus intoning the joyous ‘Higher and higher and higher’ refrain. The ‘Feel it rain’ breakdown at the climax of ‘Folds in Your Hands’ has the same effect. These are just two of the countless moments on the album which can make you feel momentarily like you don’t have a care in the world.

Very occasionally, Manners throws up hints that Passion Pit can do more than just make you want to dance. ‘Swimming in the Flood’, and ‘Seaweed Song’ have, if you’ll pardon the unintended aquatic pun, greater depth than much of the rest of the album. The former shows a slightly darker, more longing side, while the latter is the mini electro epic with which Manners reaches an increasingly frenzied conclusion.

While the album isn’t exactly formulaic, it’s difficult to shake the nagging feeling that it a little more variation from the histrionics would have made it a more rewarding listen. Because that is its one major fault, the fact that Angelakos’ vocals only really have one mode: Hysterical. Occasionally his fervour is fitting, like on the opening lines of ‘Sleepyhead’: ‘And you said / It was like fire around the brim’. But more often, his delivery can grate and make a very accessible album fairly heavy going.

So Manners is a flawed, but likeable album. It is like an excitable puppy, jumping around and yapping at you to notice it. But it is also capable of frequently bringing you great enjoyment. None of the album’s foibles are deal-breakers, and can easily be ironed out for Album Two. I’m not sure I’ll still be regularly listening to it in a year’s time, but I can see myself moving my feet to a number of its tracks for many years to come.