Hold on. Was I asleep when the 80s came back?
Take the first track, "Heartbeats", which opens with a groove-synth riff and clapped beat that unfortunately fails to either make you groove or want to clap. Such a nasty word to use surely, but this album can be easily described with the stalwart "cheesy". It's not that the songs here are especially bad, but, y'know, if I wanted music like this, I'd have turned on a video game or something.
So, it's all nameless electronics here. Your moogs and mogs and Casio whatevers, and not an inch of organical instrumentation, aside from the vocals, and even then, half the time they've been distorted by the "wonders" of transistors. So, we turn in dire hope to the vocals themselves, praying that they'll redeem this album, begging that they'll pull the album's sound higher than just a few drum loops and a synth, but no. A Swedish woman. Gee, now that's original. It appears that the Concretes were just the tip of the iceberg. Well, strictly speaking, Abba were, but the Concretes were the tip for a more modern age.
So, the problem is that it all sounds the same. Oonce oonce oonce, do do do do do. That's a bass drum and a shitty little synth ditty, respectively. Throw in a few steel drums, which were probably just the most un-generic synth sounds they could find on the keyboard, and a few annoying backing vocals, and hey presto. The Knife. Everything's so non-sensical as well, it's as if the sheer swedoscity of the Swedes makes them babble incoherently and sit around prodding their Casio MiniKeyboards. The different voices on "You Make Me Like Charity" (nice title there, Knife) are just damn annoying - in fact, on half the album it sounds like she's trying to sound Japanese. Why?
It all has the same pace as well. Where's the mellower tracks? The crescendos? The album is just 55 minutes of a guy playing on a keyboard whilst the same drum part beats constantly. You can feel your heart slowly fitting in with the beat's time, and this album draws you closer to your death. I'm sorry to slander this so, but, if the boot fits...
The only different track here has to be "Behind the Bushes", and just for not having a single, generic, constant, bass beat in it which slowly beats, or that voice, I give it my coveted Best Track On The Album award. It's pretty much music that would fit in a 50s film as a child walks through a graveyard. I'm not going to even discuss the final "normal" track on the album, "Hangin' Out" - the name says it all, and it's not about being with friends.
The only reason I'd tell you to buy this album is so that you could listen to it and e-mail me telling me how right I am.
Please. Someone make the pain stop.