****
(Palm/Festival)
Review: Russell Baillie
As the name implies, the debut album by this cosmopolitan Los Angeles quartet offers a line in designer pop for lounge consumption.
Fortunately, care of the voice of Geri Soriano-Lightwood and the equally sassy songs, SBOL deliver something smarter than just canny boutique-friendly beats and requisite electro-chilled moods.
They certainly
don't lack for variety, either. Among the 11 tracks the gear-shift switches from trip-hop fogginess to drum'n'bass sprightliness across to the occasional big-beat hydraulics, with turntables, guitars, sitars and various electro-noises making for a bitsy but effective approach.
Maybe it's because the tracks sound like they've been worked from the song down - rather than the machinery up - that this is an easy ear- grabber.
The abundant pop hooks certainly help, as do Soriano-Lightwood's melodies, which come in some seductive soul-jazz shapes. Sometimes that's suggesting Neneh Cherry-does-Beck on the likes of the fizzy Golddigger, or a smoother Luscious Jackson on the fizzy-funky closing numbers,What's The Deal and Under The Gun.
Elsewhere, You're Always the Sun could be a Stellar remix, Strangelove Addiction heads all-out for the dancefloor, while the downbeat likes of Last Girl of Earth and the drum'n'bossanova Ain't Got Nothing suggest that the couch or barstool is where this debut will really make its mark.
Inevitably there's an accompanying air of dilletante-ism to it all. Music so stylishly dressed and effortlessly catchy faces inevitable disposability. But SBOL should last a season or two, at least.
