 |
| I'll cut to the chase. Like Silver Scooter's first album The Other Palm Springs, "Orleans Parish" is a wonderfully tender collection of emo pop. Syrupy melodies and bittersweet lyrics joined with throbbing rhythms and sparse instrumentation make for poignant, powerful songs. Part of me wants to align Silver Scooter with downtown-type noise-popsters of the Sonic Youth ilk -- superficially the sound is similar -- but my better part sees through their rock band dressings to their pure pop underbelly. These songs are just too sweet to be called noise-rock! The best track on the disc, "New Orleans", starts suprisingly with an almost bluegrass guitar lick, but the bass and drums quickly remind us we're not in the bayou. The song builds in a very organic fashion, adding vocals and a soulful cello line, coming to a wonderful epiphany about 3 minutes in -- this is gorgeous songcraft! "Tribute to the Phone Calls" is the tune that gives away SS's pop underpinnings most blatantly. Listen to the beginning guitar riff -- is that or is that not New Order? And the lyrics are beautiful and yearning and sweet. The theme of "Morning View" reminds me of Eric Matthews' song "Morning Parade", only perhaps not as sophisticated -- and therein lies part of its charm, in its simple, innocent naiveté. This may not be rocket science, but it is tender, unpretentious, earnest music. And anyway, the world has more rockets than it needs! |
|
![[splendid reviews]](../reviewbanner.gif){kind=small}
