A musical chocolate soufflé... What a treat!

I was absolutely under the spell of The Bird and the Bee’s first, eponymous album release (listened to it many a time, driving from Appleton to Madison, and back).

It was a strange mixture of very classic Burt Bacharach (especially I’m a broken heart, which BB might as well have written, if he were some 50 years younger), with a dash of cooly stylish, downtempo-ish Air, and a few unpredictable, key-shifting transitions of Röyksopp, with just a pinch of a totally unique magical je ne sais quoi, that was totally their own.

I have to admit that I very much enjoy the fact that the bands that define themselves by very unique, unmistakeable, signature soundscapes (The Bird and the Bee, but also Tv on the Radio, or Hercules and Love affair) seem to be in vogue, once again.

Last time this happened, it was in mid-, to late eighties, and let’s just say that I remember those years fondly, to say the least…

Of course, a very unique signature sound has pluses and minuses. Some people will consider albums by such bands uterly boring, claiming that all tracks sound alike. Of course, they don’t, although in a way of course they do…

The trick then is to have enough musical spunk to sustain interest, and keep the momentum. And the sophomore album The Bird and the Bee just released is unbelievable, in the sense that is it clearly better, more mature, and even more ambitious than the first one.

The lyrics are sweet and delicious, but more like a light and fluffy chocolate soufflé, than a hunk of gooey fudge. Even more than on the original release, many songs have impressive arrays of ingenious hooks, transitions, and sounds that vibrate and shimmer all over the place.

There are a few tracks that have previously been released on EPs that came out after the first album. Birthday was released on a Valentine’s Day EP a year ago, and Polite Dance Song isn’t new either, but there is still plenty of new, outstanding material.

I guess I would fall within the category that Rolling Stone’s Jody Rosen calls “rock snob,” because I like the album much more than she does. It is, like all things in music, a matter of taste: you can see the music of The Bird… as “a peculiar juxtaposition of cheery retro melodies dressed in an irresistibly fresh and modern dance beat” (as Sarah C. Culver sees it in her sensible review), or merely as “all this retro-contempo style” (Rosen, again).

My favorite tracks include the technically subperb Love Letter to Japan, and mesmerizing Baby, that Burt would be really proud of…