Two-CD sets by indie pop bands weren't common fare in 2007, but that's what Trollyvox offer on
Your Secret Safe/Luzerne. While neither of the two discs are ballyhooed more than the other in the packaging, it's likely that the one titled
Your Secret Safe is the one into which they poured their primary energy, as the disc titled
Luzerne is wholly acoustic and partially instrumental.
Your Secret Safe, in contrast, boasts full-band arrangements, offering guitar pop featuring Beth Filla's coolly haunting lead vocals. While not the most remarkable or brilliant of sounds, the band's combination of moody and meditative words and melody with fairly aggressive, guitar-driven backing is reasonably engaging. A few of the tracks, like "I Call on You" and "Reading," are a bit like hearing
the Who with a more contemporary indie pop bent and a female vocalist, and in fact,
the Who's "Our Love Was" is the only cover of the set. Other songs admit other influences into their approach, like ringing 12-string power pop on "Jean Jacket," though even that song has instrumental breaks with highly
Pete Townshend-esque power chords. The other disc on this release,
Luzerne, is not
Your Secret Safe unplugged. It has entirely different songs, though the only instrumentation is provided by Trollyvox songwriter Andrew Chalfen (mostly on acoustic guitar) and Eve Miller (on occasional cello), and five of the twelve tracks are instrumental. In keeping with the format, these are gentler and folkier tunes, more
Nick Drake than
Pete Townshend, though they're less memorable than those on the
Luzerne CD. There's a penetrating opening lyric of "Intermission," though, with more anguish than is apparent from the musical tone of the cut: "She found her broken heart in mint condition in the Japanese rent-a-car." ~ Richie Unterberger