CD Feature/ The Submarines: "Honeysuckle Weeks"

Wool-sweater electro-chill indebted to Air for the up-front brand of Casio cheese that lends a sense of whimsy to a set of songs that otherwise might have been overly dramatic.

No way was this going to be as melancholy as their debut, "Declare a New State", the making of which just might someday be dummy-fied into a Drew Barrymore movie (this LA-by-way-of-Boston romantic couple broke up, wrote some tunes separately, and then got back together again when they realized they were forever doomed to writing songs about how bad it sucked not being with each other. Sets a nauseating tinge of grey to your coal-black heart, doesn't it?).

In an advisable turn of events, the vocals are now handled almost exclusively by Blake Hazard, whose nasal-sprayed resemblance to Cardigans singer Nina Persson takes up the commercial-credibility slack when things get too cutie-quirky; John Dragonetti’s Spacemen 3 tenor doesn't jump in until the easy-tempo New Order rubber-band guitars of "The Wake Up Song" peg the volume a bit.

"1940" is a slinky vampire-cabaret bed-down draped in the scratched-vinyl and Rice Krispies snare beats Portishead are famous for, whereas "The Thorny Thicket" makes impressive hay out of a Pacman synth that sprouts wings before your ears.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: The Submarines
Homepage: Nettwerk Records