 |
rating : 6.5 |
more info : |
Josh Rouse's "Under Cold Blue
Stars" makes me think of Sondre Lerche's debut album released
a couple of months ago. "Faces Down" is a great sunny pop
album that makes you feel Summer is already here, making you expect to
meet beautiful hardly dressed creatures out in the street.
Unfortunately it was released during the neverending wet and cold
month of January.
Unlike Sondre Lerche's album -which will make a great Summer record if
we've not grown tired of it til then- Josh Rouse's fourth release
comes at the right time. It features ten songs and an instrumental -the
short "Twilight" which introduces the album. It is to
"Faces Down" what night is to day, what winter is to summer
(what is great about being a reviewer is being able to let all the
poetry inside of you go freely). Josh Rouse's songs are shelters from
the cold wet and lonely winter nights, with a fireplace and bowls of
warm soup.
The three first songs are surgical brain scalpels piercing their way
into your subconscious. If you succeed in resisting "Nothing
Gives me Pleasure," -far less negative than it seems to be (Nothing
gives me pleasure like you do)- and "Miracle" with its
oh-so 80ish keyboards and a killer chorus then "Christmas with
Jesus" which sounds like a lost hit single out of U2's
"Joshua Tree" will crush the last barriers of anti-pop
resistance inside of you. Things get a little less exciting afterwards,
the title track is probably the worst song on the album. But just when
you thought that the three first songs were the only good songs,
dusting off the "this ok lp would have made a great ep"
argument, Rouse unleashes "Feeling No Pain," the intro
sounds like the intro of a Flaming Lips song, unfortunately Josh Rouse
is far less excentric than the Lips, so things calm down afterwards.
"Summer Kitchen Ballad" would have made a great closer if it
were the last song on the album. "Women and Men" makes me
think of a song out of James Iha's solo album, a cute and fragile
butterfly-like pop thing (I know nobody's supposed to like James Iha's
solo album but i do.) The last song (which is unfortunately not as
good as "Summer Kitchen Ballad") reminds me of a (good) Clem
Snide song, but I've forgotten the title, sorry dear reader.
-Barbara H.