The Electric Soft Parade: No Need To Be Downhearted

Elly Roberts reviews

The Electric Soft Parade: No Need To Be Downhearted
Distributed by
Truck Records

    Cover

  • April 2007
  • Rating: 6/10

Brighton already has one famous resident – Fat Boy Slim.

The Electric Soft Parade are also residents, apparently, but have yetto acquire a similar status. So will this third album propel them into thebig time?

Previous albums haven’t done well, so they’ve parted company with their majorlabel, with brothers Alex and Tom White going to Truck Records. Bits of itwill be very appealing to the mainstream, but some bits will be the reserveof musos. When it works, it works really well, and is unlike anything on thecurrent scene.

In parts, their music has definite ’60s trippy hippy leanings – Shore Song (a la Devendra Banhart/Sufjan Stevens) blended with currentchart pop outings like heavy chord riffed Misunderstanding (a greatsingle lads.. come on get it out !) and crunching rocker If That’s TheCase (this too a potential single).


Secrets is the type of alt-country outing by Micah. P. Hinson – sparseand hollow acoustic guitar and vocals which juxtapose perfectly with its predecessor,though it does rise to a heavily brassed-up and percussive crescendo.

Amazingly, Cold War could have been right out of a McCartney ’60ssongbook, with its upbeat and catchy hooks – maybe a tribute to Macca?Elsewhere, we get glorious music from the likes of Come Back Inside despiteits cacophonous ending.

Title track, parts 1 and 2 show their versatility and the strength in depthin terms of songwriting, though Life In A Backseat is their onlymajor weak spot.

Their potential is immense.

Weblinks:electricsoftparade.com /myspace.com/electricsoftparade /truckrecords.com


The full list of tracks included are :

1. No Need To Be Down Hearted (Part 1)
2. Life In The Backseat
3. Woken By A Kiss
4. If That’s The Case, Then I Don’t Know
5. Shore Song
6. Misunderstanding
7. Secrets
8. Cold World
9. Have You Ever Felt Like It’s Too Late ?
10. Come Back Inside
11. Appropriate Ending
12. No Need To Be Downhearted (Part 2)

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