The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
Australians invade UK charts by way of several advert soundtracks…
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[5.64]
Martin Skidmore: If you have always thought Keane would be better with vocals that sound like a 12 year old boy, you’re in luck.
[2]
Michaelangelo Matos: Damn me for falling (a little) for this vague puffery, but I do like the guitar’s build and the propelling motion of it.
[6]
John Seroff: Temper Trap neatly executes saccharine without seeping; fatality without dramatics. There’s a brittle decrescendo fault running through ‘Sweet Disposition’ that teeters between swell and disintegration. It’s a nifty aural trick that emphasizes the “pretty” in this pretty simple anachronism.
[7]
Chuck Eddy: First couple notes bring to mind “Blister In the Sun” by the Violent Femmes. Then some weenie starts dealing out a painfully thin and affected falsetto, which makes me want to hit somebody. The song goes nowhere from there, and takes too long to do it. So when the jangle and harmonies eventually slip into a semblance of an early U2 (New Order? Dream Academy?) groove, it’s a surprise.
[4]
Colin Cooper: At first glance, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, and there’s loads right: the guitars working against each other in the chorus, and the layers and rhythms and details that earn them at least low Key Stage 3 grades, while more seasoned pedallers of quasi-anthemic indie nonsense like your Coldplays and your Keanes languish in creative Special Ed. Regardless of this, or the baffling hype surrounding TTT, this leaves me stone cold, just like everything that can realistically be considered to have brought it into being. Still, must be novel for The Edge, having a guitar riff stolen from him for a change.
[4]
Iain Mew: I was all set to go with an offhand dismissal based on just how much it sounds like U2. Then I realised that I like their singer better than Bono, and this built up an impressive enough momentum behind its shimmering to just about win me over. Even if it’s mostly achieved by switching to sounding like the Arcade Fire instead.
[6]
Pete Baran: The 80’s revival continues apace with U2 guitars and atmospheric high pitched harmonies which bring to mind a tamed Proclaimers. As a nipper I bought albums with songs like this as the lead track, and the rest of the album was always rubbish. So it loses points for reminding me tangentially of Then Jerico’s The Big Area (Outside).
[4]
Ian Mathers: The way they eventually build the whole track over that kind of constant oscillation is actually quite beautiful. By the end this is the first single we’ve covered since Friendly Fires’ “Jump in the Pool” (which this is not dissimilar to, albeit much gentler) that makes me eager to hear the album it came from.
[9]
Martin Kavka: No matter how much my playcount for this increases, I will never be convinced that this is not a remix of M83’s “Don’t Save Us From The Flames” with new vocals from an ever-so-slightly-butcher Jimmy Somerville.
[9]
Hillary Brown: Kind of falls in that rather too gay while also not really being gay enough range, in that it wants to be Kitchens of Distinction but lacks the drama. Still rather pretty, though.
[6]
Briony Edwards: Has anyone else noticed that this band seems to be fronted by Elliot from Hollyoaks? It’s pleasant enough — twinkly and wishy-washy in all the right places, with hints in the lyrics of some super soul-destroying heartbreak somewhere in the past — but when compared to what it’s imitating, it doesn’t really deliver a great deal.
[5]
Matt Cibula: Too much atmosphere, not enough space; never really comes together as a song, or as a non-song.
[5]
Additional Scores
Anthony Miccio: [6]
Alfred Soto: [6]
Why Martin and I are the only ones susceptible to ridiculously euphoric kind of shoegaze-y pop, I have no idea (good call on Jimmy Somerville too). But Hillary’s absolutely right about one thing: These guys aren’t nearly as awesome as Kitchens of Distinction.