After a couple of singles that were fuzzily lo-fi attempts at building a Wall of Sound, Spectrals quickly shored up their sound by ditching the fuzz and trying little tricks like playing in tune and layering in washes of synth. On the band’s (who is essentially a young U.K. resident named Louis Jones doing everything but drumming) debut for Slumberland, old-school dream pop producer Richard Formby lends a stabilizing hand, and the sound the two create is a slick and easy to swallow one that wouldn’t scare off a fan of Prefab Sprout. That is not a bad thing by any means, though it may scare off people who like their guitar pop sounding cruddy. What is more of a problem on Bad Penny is that while Jones and Formby have built a nice framework of jangling guitars, bouncing beats, and slightly blurry layers of keys, the songs Jones writes are less than memorable. A couple of them stick, the punchy “Get a Grip” chief among them, but for the most part, the formless structure of the songs and Jones’ crooning vocals, which tend to float around the mix rather than get right in there and grab you, mean that there is a disconnect between the super poppy sound and the lack of hooks. It’s a pleasant listen to be sure, with many of the tracks hitting a melancholic sweet spot, and a few working up a nice head of restrained steam, but overall, there is something important lacking. Passion, maybe? Some grit and grime, perhaps? Memorable songs, for sure. It’s much more Swoon than it is Two Wheels Good, to stick with the Prefab Sprout comparison. Though it's not bad by a long shot, (especially on “Get a Grip” and the sweetly drifting “Luck Is There to Be Pushed”) Bad Penny is mostly just disappointing.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo