The Singles Jukebox

And now, some Americans…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.23]

Martin Skidmore: Acousticish indie from LA (I had though the BBC list was about British acts, but it isn’t), the restrained female voices layered for a haunting effect as they strum along. It actually comes reasonably close to captivating me, but really its muted affect eventually bored me, despite a half-decent tune.
[4]

Tom Ewing: Does what it says on the tin: somnolent drift pop with enough hints at movement under the surface to beguile. Lacks — on a few hearings — the single killer moment or idea that would make it great, but on the other hand it really does nothing wrong.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Sonic signifiers from the early eighties – thick guitar strums, blankly compelling femme singer, doubletracked harmonies – conjure the state described by the song title. Not a song I’d play by choice, but I wouldn’t skip it if it came on the iPod.
[7]

Alex Macpherson: Warpaint’s sound is inoffensive — pleasant, even, more than listenable over the course of their album. But they lack whatever the magic is that elevates peers within the same (vague) ballpark such as School of Seven Bells and The xx: their arrangements hold few surprises, there’s little emotional compulsion to their performances and, well, the songs just aren’t there. The album is fine background listening; out of that context, “Undertow” sags forgettably.
[5]

Iain Mew: Starts out with the space and calm of The xx before gradually submerging itself into uncertainty and disorder. It does it in a pretty captivating way, but Warpaint’s inclusion on the list is a bit of an oddity given that their album was released in 2010, before the choices were made, and the chances of them gaining more attention in 2011 than they already have are near zero, what with them being American and not eligible for the Mercury Music Prize and all. If there’s no requirement to really be that new, couldn’t Glasser have been included instead?
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: All-female pop-rock (or pop-punk, but that’s not this) bands are a huge weakness of mine; all-female pop-rock bands with swirly background harmonies are a huge weakness I didn’t even know I had. Songs as gorgeous as this are why I don’t call them weaknesses.
[8]

Zach Lyon: Mostly bland and unrecognizable, but some of the harmonies sound nice enough and it reminds me of being fourteen years old so much that I want to raise the score a little.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Suzanne Vega did a somewhat more affecting ironed-hair folk-pop “Undertow” song on her debut album, 26 years ago. And this is also probably no match for the Under Toad, in The World According To Garp. But the weary melody and distaff harmonies do nonetheless unite to form at least some trace of pang. For some reason it makes me think “Salem 66,” who I’m not sure I ever heard.
[4]

Kat Stevens: I nearly wrote this off due to the ditchwater-dull video but I’m glad I gave it another chance. The Warpaint girls’ voices float around each other like they are ghosts haunting the bottom of a well (note to self: possible movie soundtrack for Lassie Watch Out?). It tails off towards the end when the drumkit gets chucked down the well too, clattering all over the place.
[5]

Mallory O’Donnell: Better still not to breathe, you might die for all the yawning.
[3]

Josh Langhoff: I call “Polly” reference! Never thought a song would make me long for the taut grooves of a Nirvana ballad, but there you go.
[2]

John Seroff: “Undertow” sounds uncannily like The Bangles covering an obscure Nirvana 7″: a perversely poppy take on mope rock that benefits from wacky phrasing and some vaguely catchy snippets of hooks imported from another song entirely. The bass is way too high up in the mix, presumably to cover the thirty percent of the song that’s gone missing. The lyrics couldn’t be more goofy… “I’ll take you the darkest part of the weather”? Intentionally off-key, intentionally off-kilter, unintentionally uninteresting.
[5]

Jer Fairall: Pleasant and unassuming, sure, but the world probably already has enough Azure Ray records.
[4]