Savoir Adore

In The Wooded Forest

Cantora

Released: Monday 6 September 2010

The pairing of male and female vocals, both on lead, within one band is becoming more of a common thing. There's the poptastic Alphabeat and even the sublime, yet unlikely pairing of Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan. Of the two, Savoir Adore sound more in the Alphabeat mould of pop but have a more simplistic and electro-powered engine.

Their opener 'The Scientific Findings of Dr. Rousseau' is steeped in mystery and contemplation of life and death; despite being a short song lyrically, it's one of the best tracks of the album. For the most part Paul Hammer and Deidre Muro interplay well; they don't have the extreme polar opposite sound of Campbell and Lanegan and they don't have the sugary sweet sound of Alphabeat. In truth, despite the well executed lyrics and performances, the sound is slightly run-of-the-mill. 'Bodies' and 'Honestly' are two stand out tracks for very different reasons. While 'Bodies' has the hooks and sing-along power of a single release, 'Honestly' is one of the more lyrically astute songs - an acoustically picked song with a confessional soul "I didn't know...Honestly, did you really think I would let you leave?". These two songs, along with the aforementioned opener, make up most of this albums score.

The rest of the songs fall into two categories. 'Transylvanian Candy Patrol' and 'Wonderlake' are well intentioned but clumsy songs, straying too far from any kind of vision. 'Wonderlake' moves from cute indie-twee sounds - which they manage gracefully - and then tries to impose an anthemic guitar sound which renders the song messy. The other category is for to be songs ruined by too much reliance on electronics and loops. There is a thin layer of creativity this band possesses which they could easily beef up and focus, but instead they let machines do the work ('The Wooded Forest' being a prime example). In short, twee and "cute" sounds don't necessarily equate to music. Instead they should take more pride in their own abilities as musicians and melody makers which is brilliantly executed on 'Space Travel'.

Savoir Adore will be the band everyone listens to before leaving for a night out. Full of catchy and upbeat songs, but easily passed over due to the nature of some of the arrangements and their over reliance on sounds they haven't made themselves... Not that they're the only band falling into this trap these days however.