Firing up the CD, we are asked to consider some carefully intoned questioning before we get to the tunes. An old male voice asks:
"What would you do if you only had three days to live? Where would you go? Who would you see? And what would your last wish be?"
Personally I wouldn’t involve a chillout house music duo on their fourth album (this time going self-released on their own label). But on the other hand, speaking for myself, I wouldn't expect to be warned with such depressing precision, and, personally, I wouldn't be inclined to take the relaxation road to oblivion.
But neither would I have expected a fairly chirpy set of well-made pop songs in a HOT CHIP kind of mood. Maybe this time it's deeper house, older synth patches (yes, those ping ping drum sounds again in Track 1) and more laid back. But radio could play this alongside HOT CHIP and you’d see the contemporary sense of it. It’s amusing, it’s tuneful and it has proper songs with the minimal beats and the melody lines that really work. Effects generally are varied and sometimes surprising. It really stands up for counting at Track 5, with "Tired of the Show", with a great female soul voice and a memorable hook.
The rest doesn't quite get so obviously radio hit-like, but it is pleasure from start to finish. It's 90s with some 80s ideas (bits of Tom Tom Club!). And if you're too young to have heard any of that, the novelty value and the tunes will be quite enough to get some enthusiasm going. It sounds a lot more real-life and approachable than, let’s say, your BEYONCE or GIRLS ALOUD stuff.
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"Wendy Darling" and "As Seen From Space" (Tracks 6 and 8) are short interludes that seem to have been started with grander ambitions, and then abandoned. Otherwise each piece has a full suit of clothes and its radio play list potential.
But I think you can tell what my problem is here. Nail Tolliday And Simon Mills are talented guys. BENT can turn a tune, they can make people dance. They can create a mood and a world in a three-minute space. But I'm not sure why they're doing it on this album. Second, third time through, and I'm still grasping at some kind of integrity or sense of direction that would push all this cuteness together. Tracks 10 and 11 are nipped together with an underlay with sampled tropicality and cicadas, with "After The Love" getting some lush instrumentation – chromatic-sounding harmonica, whistling, string parts and a (real?) guitar. And then forest birds and animals getting a bit guttural to finish … All a bit bitty.
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