Reviewed by Phil Thomson

This is a silly album. There may well be a market for beautifully packaged retro saccharine, but it is hard to say how far it will travel beyond this trio's Hamburg base. If the idea is tongue-in-cheek glam pop, it sounds as if, in this debut, the theatrical has already taken precedence over the music. The “act” is one handsome, sequinned guy and two pretty girls in very convincing mermaid's outfits. Sadly, like the mermaids, it just doesn't stand up. The production isn't imaginative enough to carry the joke, if there is a joke in there. The girls have been listening to Blondie and before; the boy, just not listening. You get the feeling that they are singing to themselves, hardly letting up to connect with their audience. The tracks and treatments are one-dimensional, the lyrics incomprehensible - 'Your digiti minimi is greater than a proton, in an atom, in a lump of sugar, in the stomach of an elephant, in a national park' (“Digiti Minimi”). You can see what they're getting at. I'd like to think that it's a post-modern wind up, yet I fear they might be taking themselves too seriously for that. I have been trying to detect a mid-European sense of humour at work in the wanna-be-playful use of English, but it needs a snappier delivery, better close harmonies - some tunes would help - and most of all, a sense of the history of the genre. You simply cannot party on weak vocals, cranked up guitars and the breathless pursuit of bad syntax.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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