January 21, 2010

The Lovedrunks: Light Bulbs Explode


The song
Books really caught me with one of its opening lyrics:

so in the cellar down below
you can find me reading books

The song is a lighthearted, innocent sounding song that really grows in intensity over its 4:39 minute run. Being a geek, the title immediately grabbed me, and I really got into the song that deals with a fairly simple topic: escapism. While the rest of the album doesn't necessarily deal with all the same issues, I was brought into the rest of the album by this German group.

The Lovedrunks are a youngish band that really seems to capture some of the spirit of the internet generation, what with songs like
16bit Analog Love and Central Station exuding a sort of youthful optimism throughout most of the songs. It's a welcome reprieve after going through several albums that are much darker, broodier and edgier. While listening, it sounds very much like these guys assembled and had quite a bit of fun doing so.

The band has a good, solid sound to it. They're not perfect, and I think that their lead singer needs to work a bit on the vocals (he sounds quite a lot like Weird Al, weirdly, with a higher, nasal-type of sound), but he is well supported by the piano and guitar throughout most of the songs. This keeps the group from being really good right off the bat, but with the way music comes together, that's hardly out of the ordinary - the difference here is that they are already off to a decent start, with some interesting songs from their first album, and good musical talent behind the scenes. Indeed, vocally, they also hit their high points with
Books and Dear Me. What they do is the most important, and that's that they aren't boring - quite the contrary. The album is mixed up enough sound wise that it doesn't become overwhelmingly repetitive, nor do they linger too much on any particular subject to slant the album that way. It's fun, light indie-pop music.

Books - The Love Drunks