Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Love Comes and Goes

Telekinesis sets the lyrical tone immediately on the new 12 Desperate Straight Lines: "We fell in love in the summer. By springtime we were done." Yep, classic break-up album. Virtually every song invokes the winter of their discontent with the cheeriest of tunes. Yep, classic Too Poppy album!

The second album by Michael Benjamin Lerner's band easily avoids the sophomore jinx by staying catchy, concise and reverent to popsters of yore. Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover is explicitly affirmed by 50 Ways. Please Ask for Help is richly complete with Disintegration-era Cure guitars. And Gotta Get It Right Now is the catchiest thing I've heard all year. The static of background broadcasts is peppered throughout the album giving it that irresistible classic AM radio feel that seems to fit nicely with the universal sentiment that relationships suck at times but yet we still gotta get it right now.

The album produced by Death Cab's Chris Walla clocks in at barely over half an hour and leaves you thoroughly satisfied yet hopeful for more. 12 Desperate Straight Lines is the first great Too Poppy-approved album of 2011.

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