Album Details

• Artist: Funeral Inthemirror
• Album: Old Wolf Thoughts
• Label:
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: archelon on 2010-03-23

Funeral intheMirror have been compared favourably to other duo-driven bands like They Might Be Giants and MGMT, and while I agree that two musicians make a duo, I don't think these comparisons quite do them justice. They Might Be Giants take too tongue-in-cheek a view of themselves and MGMT have come over all art-rock of late - and 'Old Wolf Thoughts' is neither of these things.

Rock at times, then electro, then pop, each song is pure but different from the next. Joe DeRosa (yes, THAT Joe DeRosa) and James Pinkstone craft clever but catchy electro-funk atop the plans drawn up by The Pixies and Frank Zappa, then add in some organic instruments for flavour. Despite the complexity of the output it's all not only listenable but understandable too.

Frankly, they could have pulled off a stunning debut with just this mix, but the one drawback is the vocals. Not to say that they're bad, quite the opposite, but they just don't seem to sit comfortably in the rest of the music. When they are good, they're very, very good - see 'Valentine' for further details. But on tracks like 'Ethel' they are just distracting.

If you want to keep the magic of this album alive, be selective about listening - you're bound to find a few favourites that are perfectly to your taste. The ones you don't like, avoid - they'll just ruin it for you. 

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