Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 Reviewer: Garth Paulson |
With a little more swagger, Pretty & Nice could sound like the spitting image of Spoon on ‘Pixies.’ With a little more care-free messing around ‘Piranha’ and ‘Nuts & Bolts’ could pass off as long buried Supergrass rarities. With some female backup vocals thrown in ‘Tora Tora Tora’ and ‘Peekaboo’ would be better New Pornographers songs than three quarters of Challengers. Hell, with a few mop-tops and a mono mix, Get Young, the debut full length from the band, could pass off as a long-lost Kinks experiment; replace the mop-tops with ‘80s coifs and the mono mix with a few more cheesy keyboard farts and Get Young could be by XTC.
Despite how it might sound, the above is not intended to be taken derisively. Yes, naming Pretty & Nice’s influences and touchstones is a fairly easy exercise—as has been the case with every release to date on Sub Pop’s fledgling offshoot, Hardly Art—but they don’t seem to care and neither should listeners. Instead of originality Pretty & Nice offer song after song of concise, tightly-wound pop packed to bursting with as many hooks as can be crammed into two minutes. It’s far from jaw-dropping, earth-shattering stuff, but damn if it won’t get feet tapping.
That said, Get Young is at times a little too safe. Throughout the album, the band proves that they’re quite talented playing in others’ sandboxes—and appear to be having a blast while doing it—but on future releases it would be nice to see them set off and build a sandbox of their own.
