In the opening sequence to Robert Altman’s 1992 film The
Player, producers at a movie studio pitch ideas that merely recycle
things that have already been commercially successful. One guy wants to
make “Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate,” while
another pitches “Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman.”
A scenario like this could explain the existence of The Big Pink,
whose debut A Brief History of Love answers the tasteless
question, “What if Oasis tried to make a Postal Service album?”
The problem is, they’ve taken everything self-indulgent and whiny
about Oasis and fused it with everything redundant and artificial about
The Postal Service. Take “Crystal Visions,” in which we get a tedious
buildup that eventually segues into British speak-singing over big,
fuzzed-out guitars. Then the song never goes anywhere; it’s utterly
inert.
This same issue plagues the rest of the album, though a couple of
nice moments creep in; “Golden Pendulum” nicely fabricates the
electro-pop sound that’s so in vogue these days.
Lead vocalist Robbie Furze is a cipher with no inherent charisma,
and the spidery, masturbatory guitar-wailing just plain annoys,
especially when it’s mixed with the computerized aesthetics of
electronica. And don’t get me started on the album’s catchiest track,
“Dominos,” a sexist anthem that waxes poetic about the inherent
disposability of female bodies.
This band’s being hailed by NME as the next big thing, but at
the end of the day, this is a vapid, meaningless record from a band
that feels like a marketing ploy.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.