Heavenly has always rooted their music pretty firmly in upbeat '60s pop, and The Decline and Fall..., more than any of their other albums, points this out. While their previous (and probably best) release,
Le Jardin de Heavenly, was well in line with indie-pop conventions, and the release that followed (
Operation Heavenly) drifted into almost new-wave rock, The Decline and Fall... is a cleanly produced sequence of bouncy, guitar-based pop songs -- and fans of the band know just how good they are at writing bouncy pop songs. The only problem with The Decline and Fall is that it's so painfully short. ~ Nitsuh Abebe