Issue#61 [Album Reviews]

Reviews of the latest by Michael Bublé, Echo & the Bunnymen, El Perro Del Mar and Fuck Buttons.

Michael Bublé
Crazy Love
Reprise
Michael Bublé should have been a hockey player. My mom told me this. While the documentation of Bublé’s amour d’hockey is biblical, it’s the message of Adult Contemporary (AC) that Bublé tries to preach en mass. Sadly the results on Crazy Love are as flaccid as a baby’s penis on Bris milah. Peppered liberally with his bread-and-butter big band arrangements (working with the brain-trust of David Foster and Bob Rock), Crazy Love asks for more pop and fails boldly. “Just Haven’t Met You Yet” attempts to explore new territory, but falls far short of the AC benchmark set by stalwarts of the genre like Josh Groban and Daniel Powter. Bublé is a hockey man making music for hockey moms (a demographic sadly underrepresented by this publication). On the road to the rink, this is the soundtrack. While he excels for the Oprah-class-warriors, it is beyond the editorial scope of this contributor to recommend Crazy Love to anyone besides, ahem, my mom.
Joseph Delamar

Echo & the Bunnymen
The Fountain
Ocean Rain
Disappointed—it’s a four-syllable word that describes the sadness we endure when something fails to fulfill our hopes. It’s also the word that best describes my feelings after listening to the musical upchuck that is Echo & the Bunnymen’s new album, The Fountain. For those who don’t know, Echo & the Bunnymen is a British post-punk band that started in the late Seventies and swam alongside bands like The Cure, New Order and Devo. “WELL, THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO!” shouts their 11th album. It seems they are back with blazers, shades and a sack of poppy, middle-aged rock that is as palatable and contemporary as California rolls or CSI DVDs. Gone are the swirling tummy tickles that came through in such beloved songs as “Killing Moon” and “Lips Like Sugar.” With the exception of the title track, there’s really nothing post-punk, avant-garde or even interesting on the album to speak of. Sorry Bunnies, but The Fountain sounds like Coldplay with street cred.
Jules Moore

El Perro Del Mar
Love Is Not Pop
Control Group
Sarah Assbring, the mastermind behind El Perro Del Mar, has made a career out of heartbreak. Gifted in her subtleness, she manages to make this breakup record sound melancholy without the melodrama—Morrissey, take note. Minimal layering (an art the Scandinavians have so skillfully mastered—Lykke Li and Fever Ray for example) consisting of acoustic guitars, piano, retro synths and sexy drumming, along with Assbring’s girlish-yet-wise voice, equates this record to a warm Swedish hug. It’s like a friend offering comfort when you’ve had your heart freshly torn apart. From the hopeful swell of album opener “Gotta Get Smart” to the icy soundscape of “Let Me In”, she unites her album with the charm of sing-a-long melodies. Love is not pop, no, but heartbreak certainly is.
Louise Burns

Fuck Buttons
Tarot Sport
Atp
Jesus, what is this? I, of course, paid no attention to anything with the “Fuck” word in its name when all this shit started breaking back in 2007, or 08, or whatever, just like I almost ignored all the “Crystal” bands. Now, just like I realized Crystal Stilts were totally fucking awesome and designed to be my favourite band of the year, I’m finally put in a position to listen to Fuck Buttons and to realize that I’ve been missing out on something bordering on ‘mindshitting.’ Here’s a list of adjectives/adverbs to use when describing Tarot Sport: epic, martial, thundering, sprawling, shimmering, propulsive, multi-layered, grandiose, and atmospheric. Genre tags include electro/techno, shoegaze, noise, and/or experimental, with the modifier ‘post-‘ fixable to any of the above. Also worth noting is that this is an ‘album’ and that all the songs essentially bleed into each other, meaning you may feel pressured to listen for the duration of its just-under-an-hour runtime. Not sure how I feel about that, but I think Tarot Sport might be convincing enough to twist my arm into letting it roll through a few more times.
Rich Bucks