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Fresh
Spin
Artist:
The Lionheart Brothers
Album:
Dizzy Kiss
Released:
June 30 (United States)
Label:
Racing Junior
Verdict:
Spiritual rock, Norwegian bliss
 Norway’s Lionheart Brothers
are back with their second full-length, romantic,
Christian-imbued rock album. This time around, the band
lightened up on the religious imagery, instead emphasizing a
boy-girl courtship and Beach Boys-style choral harmonies. The
record is a major delight, with only one or two droning misfires
marring an otherwise charming excursion into the universe of
Scandinavian alternative rock.
First
off, lead singer Marcus Forsgren has a damn fine voice. His
reach almost never exceeds his grasp, leading to soaring
triumphs like the layered la-la-la-la chorus of “Down at
My Place” or, even better, the kiss-the-sky coda that closes out
“I Burn Myself on You.”
The band
also employs intricate guitar-on-keyboard interplay to boost
“Can You See” from faux-Carpenters territory to
full-on theological meditation, proving that the Lionheart
Brothers possess a marked talent for evincing reverence to
spiritual inspiration without preachiness or pretension.
It’s when
things slow down and fall into pointless repetition that
Dizzy Kiss stumbles, if only momentarily. “Blue Wedding” is
a terribly annoying and tedious riff on a Sufjan Stevens-style
piano ballad; it simply doesn’t work.
Yet, like
in their last release, 2005’s White Angel Black Apple,
the Lionheart Brothers have a funny knack for getting away with
things in their music –– unexpected time changes and off-kilter
harmonies that might otherwise spell disaster lend Dizzy Kiss
an aura of ‘60s pop-inventiveness that makes it one of the
year’s better releases thus far.
Old
Gem
Artist:
Velour 100
Album:
Of Color Bright
Released:
Sept. 30, 1997
Label:
Tooth & Nail
Verdict:
An obscure moment in time
 The
dreamy Velour 100 hit its zenith in 1997 with Of Color Bright,
a sublime and somewhat disembodied make-out record perfect for
any rainy day or night.
This
blissful album hails from those heady post-grunge, pre-Internet
days when the CD racks at Best Buy offered more than cheesy R&B
Whitney Houston imitators and overplayed classic-rock
catalogues. Back then –– before the World Wide Web flooded us
with aimless and untalented indie rock labels and Pavement
wannabes –– America’s small cities and college towns (Ypsilanti,
Mich., in this case) emitted some really interesting sounds.
The
band’s half-dozen or so angelic female vocalists, deft acoustic
picking and heavy guitar washes produce the
tiptoe-down-a-dark-hall vibe of the mood-setting opening tune,
“Bittersweet.” From there, “Clouds” ups the ante with a tougher
wall of sound. After that, Of Color Bright elegantly
alternates between the two, its affecting tactile variations
never seeming out of step. As with the Lionheart Brothers,
religious inspiration can play a subtle role in Velour 100’s
lyrics –– see “Under Heaven,” or the pious rocker “Shine.”
It’s
always impressive when a band accomplishes exactly what it sets
out to do. And, judging by Of Color Bright’s solid crop
of songs, Velour 100 must have been happy to put this LP
triumphantly to bed. |
