Beirut – La Llorona
Top 20 in France (a couple of weeks ago)…
[Video][Website]
[3.50]
Ian Mathers: Mr. Condon, I have seen Owen Pallett live and you, sir, are no Owen Pallett. Switching in oompah brass and clumsy marching band gestures for Pallett’s always graceful violin manipulations isn’t exactly helping your case either. How is this kind of bullshit popular in indie land, anyway?
[3]
Hillary Brown: Beirut’s managed to sustain their gypsy-tinted tunes for far longer than I would have thought in the indie rock world, not creating a ton of variety but continuing in the same pretty, mournful tone over the course of some years. This latest single is more of that, with hints of a funeral march to match the sad myth in which it originates, but their repetition isn’t annoying because it’s always so well executed.
[7]
Martin Kavka: You’re driving across Central Europe, and you suddenly need to stop in some small town to, ahem, use the facilities. Perhaps there’s some local color in the town square; a band wearing the costumes of custom is getting ready to play. You leave promptly. But six hours later, that band is playing something like this sad slow oom-pah-pah track because they’re simply too drunk to play anything else. You, on the other hand, are free.
[3]
Iain Mew: I have properly enjoyed precisely one Beirut song so far, “Cliquot”. The simple reason being that he got someone else to sing that one. No change here: just as the rich and dramatic music starts to take off Mr. Condon’s overwrought straining for emotion drags it back down to earth.
[4]
Dave Moore: Great if you like turgid tuba oompah pop, but until Beirut teams up with Polow da Don for a Chris Cornell/Timbaland-esque Frankenstein makeover, I’m not listening to anything else he does.
[3]
Additional Scores
Martin Skidmore: [1]
Heh, of course the one I mention enjoying due to the guest vocals features the same Owen Pallett as Ian compares him to unfavourably.
Which means Owen Pallett would probably hate me (he does not suffer criticisms of his friends gladly, especially flippant ones), but still: this is a pretty boring song (or, if you like tubas more than I do, a pretty, boring song).