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| Track list: 1. Sometimes 2. Got To Hang On To You 3. You Are Gentle 4. Two Lucky Magpies 5. The Boombox Ballad 6. You Got Me Time Keeping 7. Walking In The Rain 8. I Just Want To Be Good 9. Tonight You Are A Tiger 10. Over & Out Running time: 39 minutes Released: 2015 |
Complete change of tone from the last album now. I can't remember what made me pick up music by Sweet Baboo in the first place, but something made me buy Ships, which I absolutely loved. Thus I snapped this up when it came out this year then... I hardly engaged with it. Time to give it a second chance.
It begins with a guitar hook and our performer's rather distinctive voice. A slightly strained, off-kilter tone combines with generally nerdy or off-the-wall lyrics to make Sweet Baboo a one-of-a-kind. Here the song also contains a rather more orchestrated section, horns and strings giving a bigger, more produced sound. I am not sure that really works. I rather like the basic form here, but the more extravagant sections cave it in and replace it with something less immediately lovable.
The geekiness returns for track 2, and I wonder if I ever listened to this at all. I thought I had, but this rings no bells at all. Still, a self-aware song about playing music to a lover is precisely the sort of thing I expect to hear. This track harks back to decades past in a pleasant way, with a nice pop-y sound and good clean fun, and that call to the past persists into You Are Gentle, where only the odd harmony in the keys hints at the experimental side of Sweet Baboo, if you ignore the lyrics that is. I find this style enjoyable. When he nails it, Sweet Baboo produces an effortless cool and there are elements of that here. It goes a little bizarre as the track draws down, the tones going a little too electronic to maintain the mirage of an older tune. It rather spoils the tune.
The next offering is again using a piano and strings... this feels a lot more mature than Ships. Less fun, perhaps, and less immediately lovable, but a true development and delivery of something new. It is so completely different, perhaps that is why I didn't get on with it on first exposure. Not what I thought it was when I bought it, especially given the title which evokes thoughts of lo-fi home recordings rather than more arranged pieces. Now, approaching it open minded and without expectation, I am charmed.
It begins with a guitar hook and our performer's rather distinctive voice. A slightly strained, off-kilter tone combines with generally nerdy or off-the-wall lyrics to make Sweet Baboo a one-of-a-kind. Here the song also contains a rather more orchestrated section, horns and strings giving a bigger, more produced sound. I am not sure that really works. I rather like the basic form here, but the more extravagant sections cave it in and replace it with something less immediately lovable.
The geekiness returns for track 2, and I wonder if I ever listened to this at all. I thought I had, but this rings no bells at all. Still, a self-aware song about playing music to a lover is precisely the sort of thing I expect to hear. This track harks back to decades past in a pleasant way, with a nice pop-y sound and good clean fun, and that call to the past persists into You Are Gentle, where only the odd harmony in the keys hints at the experimental side of Sweet Baboo, if you ignore the lyrics that is. I find this style enjoyable. When he nails it, Sweet Baboo produces an effortless cool and there are elements of that here. It goes a little bizarre as the track draws down, the tones going a little too electronic to maintain the mirage of an older tune. It rather spoils the tune.
The next offering is again using a piano and strings... this feels a lot more mature than Ships. Less fun, perhaps, and less immediately lovable, but a true development and delivery of something new. It is so completely different, perhaps that is why I didn't get on with it on first exposure. Not what I thought it was when I bought it, especially given the title which evokes thoughts of lo-fi home recordings rather than more arranged pieces. Now, approaching it open minded and without expectation, I am charmed.
The title track is a bit more off the wall, a quirky little instrumental, and is merely a speedbump before a more upbeat track. You Got Me Time Keeping is peppy duet. The female singer joining in here is also suitably geeky of voice and the two bounce off each other well in the first minute and a half of the track before it all grows up a bit. This song is 7 minutes long, a significant departure from the short, direct length of the rest. This appears to give it more than enough time to jump the shark. It begins a high tempo number, turns into a slow ballad, then introduces a weirdness and a darkness that I find bleeds off any of the interest that the former change up maintained. Discordant strings overbear the fragile voices with a drone that I find incredibly unpleasant. Then, just after 5 minutes, the nice quick duet it started as cuts back in, geeky lyrics to the fore. Frustrating. I wish I could simply chop out the four minutes in the middle and re-engineer the track into something core coherent and enjoyable; it would only stretch to two (maybe add a half) minutes though.
Walking in the rain? No thanks. The song is nice in the faint praise kind of way - pleasant but unengaging. It smacks of TV advert music or period drama montage music to me. This lacks either immediate charm or considered appreciation. It feels a little as though this record is caught between a natural output and a conscious attempt at something more adult - which is a shame, because frankly unashamed geekdom is in relatively short supply and I could have done with more of it. And because when the matured sound is put forward and committed to, that works. It is just that some tracks seem to get caught between the two and I don't think they are tastes that go well together. It can work if music is one and lyric is the other, or when elements of each are used in concert, but wavering between the two styles rather than committing to an approach was what killed the centrepiece of the album for me.
I have to say I rather like the last couple of tracks. Over & Out has a slow pace that I think Sweet Baboo uses better than most, finding natural rhythms with a cadence of coolness, lounge without the cheese (or with a very specific type of cheese at least). All in all this feels like a mixed bag. Less pop than Ships, but I reckon a couple of the tunes here could grow on me given a chance.
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