The Brunettes
Paper Dolls
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: Lil' Chief
Let's get this out of the way up front -- I'm not really a fan of "cute" music. My tastes veer toward the darker end of the spectrum: bands like the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Church- moody, brooding bands with awesome hair and black peacoats.
And yet I can't resist the ridiculously adorable charm of the Brunettes. Their bouncy, fluffy indie-pop should appeal to Hello Kitty fans; I play for the Bad Badtz Maru team. To make things even more ridiculous, the band's latest album, Paper Dolls, contains lines about shopping for babies and life being magic (without bunnies). Bunnies?!?!
So why am I so crushed out on this little gem?
For starters, the boy/girl vocals of Heather Mansfield and Jonathan Bree are a great match - her feather light coos and breathy sighs providing the perfect counterpoint to his ennui-filled baritone. The melodies are irresistible; the upbeat energy of tunes like album openers "In Colour" and "Red Rollerskates" so contagious it's as if Bree and Mansfield had set out to start an optimism epidemic.
In the Brunettes' hands, even gangster-era crime sprees sound like an innocent romp. "I want to be/ The queen of the crime machine," Mansfield sings gleefully on "Crime Machine. " "And then my boy can be/ The baddest racket king/ The world has ever seen." This is all set over a bouncy synth-pop background that makes jewel heists and prize fights sound as innocuous as a stroll though the park with an ice cream cone. It's that synth-pop switch in direction that makes this record so much fun. The Brunettes have always had a giddy feel to their live performances, but previous recordings have sacrificed that energy for studio perfection. This time around, buoyant synths and drum machines inject a livelier, more immediate feel to the band's wide-eyed pop.
If you caught the Brunettes opening for the Shins or Rilo Kiley in '05 and were disappointed in their Sub Pop follow-up, give the band another chance. Paper Dolls is the band at their lovable, dorky best. Color me smitten.
by Barbara Mitchell
