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Mediocre mewling
Soft pop—good soft pop—has a place in the world. Not every song must electrify. But The Watson Twins make Norah Jones sound like Sharon Jones. They make She & Him sound like Ike & Tina. Their spectacularly boring new album has so little dynamic variance that it literally pains the ear.
It’s full of mid-tempo songs with midrange vocals—everything about the record is mid. The concept seems to have been a neo-folk torch-song collection, brimming with close harmonies. In practice, the harmonies disguise faux-smoky vocals that cannot stand alone. The vox on the aptly named “Tell Me Why,” for instance, are of karaoke quality. And the voices aren’t the only problem. The drums on “Calling Out” were apparently close-mic’d and then recorded in a cave. Reverb is everywhere, making the badness echo. It apparently took two producers to create this folly—take a bow, Russell Pollard and J. Soda—and it’s astounding that neither they nor the twins recognized their mistakes before it was too late.
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Wow....I hope they have a restraining order against you Nick. Glad you got my attention though, not even close to awful.
You really dropped the ball on this review. It's a truly great album; the Twins get better with each record and this one sparkles.
The drums on "Calling Out" was obviously a artistic decision. Personally I don't hear any reverb/echos leaking into any other frequencies. I don't even care for this record but your review was childish and idiotic. Go work for Pitchfork.
Nick you're a wanker. The twins are great and this album will do well. Why not use your 3 paragraphs to accentuate the positive rather than pull the producers out of the liner notes and make an uninformed comment on a single drum track. A new Americana is rising from the south and people are digging it. Buy this CD.
It looks like the only people who commented on this review are either related to the Watson Twins or shills from their label. I agree %100 with this review. Tall, good looking twins still can't undo the crime they did on this record.