Labels: Lightning Heart
Review by: james pacanowski
This was a charming little promo package, packed as it was with a sticker, a small pin and a sweet handwritten note from one of the band members. Brownie points to teamABC, I am a sucker for free shit and am much happier reading something written by the band than PR bumf, so they at least know how to promote themselves the right way (even if the whole thing is a little twee).
As for the musical contents of this EP, it is just as twee as the package itself. Boy-girl back-and-forth vocals; xylophones; tambourines; dance beats; synths; if you were at all irritated by Los Campesinos! then teamABC ought to really get your goat. To their credit, the dude’s vocals are not as gratingly affected as the dude from LC’s and they are enthusiastic and lack the pretension that occasionally blights LC; the problem is that they don’t really have the songs that LC do either, and those aformentioned male vocals are often quite flat and tuneless. So songs that were already lacking in hooks like ‘The Future West’ and ‘Casually Keeping Control’ become even more awkward and off-tune when the dude takes centre stage.
Even worse is that when they do manage to write a catchy tune, it bears so much resemblance to LC that it’s hard to even credit them for it. ‘Tangled (Your Bones)’ in particular pretty much blatantly steals the melody off ‘You, Me And Dancing’ (did you know that song is on a Budweiser commercial now? So not-punx).
I honestly feel a little bad that I don’t really have much good to say about this album, as I quite wanted to like teamABC. I will say that if you do like LC and aren’t fussy if the bands you listen to sound remarkably similar then there are songs to be enjoyed here.