“I can see it’s good, but I just can’t get all that excited about it.”
Tom: Saara, the lyricist for Boy With Strings, sends this in. We covered ‘Play Pretend’ earlier this year, and… well, we decided we weren’t really the right audience for ethereal indie-pop.
Tom: And I find myself having much the same reaction here: yes, it’s good, I can see it’s good, but I just can’t get all that excited about it.
Tim: Yeah – pleasant to listen to, but nothing much goes on during it, and after a while I find myself hurrying it along, especially at four minutes.
Tom: The trouble is, that it sounds a bit like a four-minute introduction: I keep expecting Something Bigger to happen, and it just doesn’t. This is the tone of the song, and I just can’t get used to it.
Tim: No – I want something else, or at the very least some form of beat to it.
Tom: Like I said, though: it’s good. It’s just not my cup of tea.
Tom: Occasionally, we’ll get a track suggestion in from someone who’s blatantly trying to “astroturf” — to create a fake grassroots movement, and to promote a track while pretending they’re not involved.
Not this time: in the box asking for their thoughts on the track, Saara writes “well, I wrote the lyrics and my friend who sings it is fabulous. So I am a bit biased but I think it is awesome”.
Now, to manage your expectations: “cold and cool, with looped violins” is the shtick. This is quiet, downtempo stuff here, so Saara may well have misjudged who to send this to.
Tom: Because all I can think is, that’s one hell of an introduction. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that FULL-ON PERCUSSION ain’t the aim here, but it gave me the feeling of experiencing the beginning of a track without the end.
Tim: I spent the first two and half minutes of song worried that I’d not be able to describe it as anything other than ‘remarkably dull’, because my word I couldn’t really have been interested if I’d put every bit of energy I had into it. The pause where you think something’s about to drop, and then absolutely nothing doe? That’s just cruel. Two minutes twenty-six, though, and it picks up, slightly.
Tom: There are some lovely moments in here: the multitracked “make-up” and “shake-up” in the first verse are wonderful, and the last minute or so is gorgeous. But our ears are trained for CLUB BANGERS and DROPS, Tim; I’m left wanting a kick-in that never actually arrives.
Tim: Right – the later part with the deep vocals and heavier strings is alright, and typing whilst listening to that part I’m currently finding quite enjoyable. The first part, though, I just found tedious.
Tom: But that said: my word, this is some gorgeously produced, ethereal indie-pop here. If that’s what you’re looking for, you could do a lot worse.
