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CD Reviews: Review of Keane - Hopes and Fears; Divine Comedy - Absent Friends; Finn Brothers - Everyone is Here; Scissor Sisters; Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy
 
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Wuss rock, who wants wuss rock? We got your wuss rock right here!

Admit it, gentlemen. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to RAWK. Instead, you’d rather just pop in a CD, drink a glass of merlot and snuggle with the missus. What’s that? You’re too macho to be caught dead listening to that wimpy crap? Well, I have news for you, kids: Guys who listen to wuss rock get laid. A lot. Doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?


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Keane: Hopes and Fears
Enter the no-guitar zone. Sussex piano pop trio Keane’s debut, quite simply, is like Travis’ The Man Who being covered by a-ha. The songs are stylish without being slight, and singer Tom Chaplin has a voice from the heavens, a huge tenor with killer falsetto to match (hence the a-ha comparison). Occasionally they stray into the fey British pop territory of Breathe (of “Hands to Heaven” fame), but overall the songwriting prevents them from being more style than substance. Fans of Oglio Records’ Flashback Café series or Icehouse’s Measure For Measure (“Your Eyes Open” owes a small debt to Icehouse’s “Paradise”) will find much to enjoy here.



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Divine Comedy : Absent Friends
Superb. After making the rock-oriented Regeneration (2001), Neil Hannon dissolves his septet back down to a solo project, kisses and makes up with the orchestra, and does what he does best, which is make arch, catchy and dazzlingly witty baroque pop. “Come Home Billy Bird” tells a semi-autobiographical tale about a man who literally runs out of the airport in order to do what matters to him, see his son’s football game. “The Happy Goth” is a hilarious song about a black-clad girl who only looks miserable (bonus points for the rhyming of Goth with Hoth, the ice planet in “The Empire Strikes Back”), and “Our Mutual Friend” is a haunting string suite about a fair weathered lover. But the album’s jewel is closer “Charmed Life,” which, though written for his daughter, will be the hipster wedding song of choice for years to come. It’s a stunning return to form.



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Finn Brothers: Everyone is Here
Neil and Tim Finn have contributed more great pop songs to the world than Rob Thomas could ever dream of, yet their joint collaborations have never held the charm or brilliance of their work apart. (They wrote songs separately when both were members of Split Enz.) Their latest project, Everyone Is Here, is certainly better than their 1995 rush job “debut” (the first time they started making a Finn Brothers album, it evolved into Crowded House’s great Woodface, which makes the second collaboration their debut), but the whole is not better than the sum of its parts, and man, are there some impressive parts here: producers Mitchell Froom and Tony Visconti, mixing legend Bob Clearmountain, and musical wunderkind Jon Brion all play large roles. Leadoff track “Won’t Give In” is a nice mid-tempo piece that could have fit in perfectly on Neil’s One All album, and “Homesick” has the album’s best chorus plus a nice string arrangement. In the end, the biggest problem with Everyone Is Here is that both brothers have shown, time and time again, that they are capable of doing better than this, which makes settling for second best all the more frustrating.  


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Scissor Sisters: Scissor Sisters
This group of New York queens (plus gal pal Ana Matronic) is an unholy combination of Elton John, the Bee Gees and mid-80s synth rock (Nik Kershaw in particular) thrown in a blender, but you know what? It works, because the songwriting, for the most part, elevates them above being mere impersonators. “Laura” is Jamiroquai/Stevie Wonder style funk pop at its best. “Take Your Mama” is the best song Elton John forgot to write in 1979 (too busy doing blow, likely), but the album’s best cut might be “It Can’t Come Quickly Enough,” a synth pop gem that Kershaw would be proud to call his own. Where the album starts to dissolve is on the Gibb-esque tracks like the underwritten “Filthy/Gorgeous” (nonetheless a gay club classic in the making) and their cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” sung entirely in “Stayin’ Alive”-type falsetto. The Sisters are probably headed for one-hit wonder status, and while they’re not the band of the year by any means, they’re better than you think.



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Polyphonic Spree: Together We're Heavy
They boast 25 band members. They wear white robes and sing about sunshine. How in the hell did these guys break through on the bleak landscape of modern rock radio? Don’t know, don’t care. Head Spree Tim DeLaughter wasn’t always a hippie, you know. He led a rock band called Tripping Daisy, but when guitarist and best friend Wes Berggren died of an overdose, DeLaughter took stock of his life and decided to dedicate himself to all things good, turning Daisy into the Spree, which is like the Flaming Lips performing Godspell. Their first album, The Beginning Stages Of…, was really just a bunch of demos made as an excuse to tour (their live shows are supposed to be, ahem, religious experiences). Their follow-up, Together We’re Heavy, is both better and worse than their debut. The songwriting is certainly more fully realized, with songs like “Hold Me Now” having both a verse and a chorus, whereas most of Beginning Stages’ songs were either one or the other. The biggest drawback with Heavy is its structure; the band is not nearly as loose as they were the first time around, and it was that sense of playfulness and adventure that made those demos so much better than mere demos. Polyphonic Spree may be heavy when they’re together, but they’re better when they’re freestyling.


~David Medsker 
dmedsker@bullz-eye.com 






 

 

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