Dumb It Down is my favourite on the album, a real Crosby sing-by-numbers, but none the less charming for that.
Dumb It Down is my favourite on the album, a real Crosby sing-by-numbers, but none the less charming for that.
The Pernice Brothers – Discover a Lovelier You
A cracker, if you are in the right mood. I might as well tell you now that fabulously sleepy and seductive melodies are hidden within this release. The opener, There Goes the Sun is a case in point. Beautiful mid-range harmonies soar over a moody windswept landscape, in some ways its very New Orderish, or Electronic-ish, but in a very low key way. Saddest Quo, by contrast starts in a Tom Petty mode before becoming a lovely harmony-drenched stroll. Snow is a fabulous C86 tambouriney strum, with a caustic guitar break amidships. I love the way this record is not afraid of using obvious hooks and melodies in order to get its point across.
A case in point is the lovely My So-Called Celibate Life, which is a stop-start love song, vocally delivered in hushed tones and accompanied by a lovely chiming guitar part. It’s all very straight forward stuff, but somehow it never sounds laboured or pastiche laden. Dumb It Down is my favourite on the album, a real Crosby sing-by-numbers, but none the less charming for that. The whiney guitar run adds a laconic note to the ultra simple, uber-naïve melody.
Other highlights are Amazing Glow and Red Desert; the former is a sepia-tinted waltz around an empty ballroom – the softly sung vocals are effectively accompanied by accopustic guitar and a subdued piano part. The latter is a similarly serene, Crosbian glide across a barren sun-torched landscape. It is very redolent of setting suns and sand dunes.
Great dreamy stuff for an autumn evening.