Break Up

I was pretty excited to see the release of this album back in 2009. I had loved Yorn's Back and Fourth album and I really wanted Scarlett to be as great of a singer as she is an actress. The novelty was, sadly, short-lived. The reality was that Scarlett can sing, but only with limited competency and not consistently. Her vocals and many of the tunes were too 1960's Country and Western for my taste. She seemed to be emulating Tammy Wynette (not a good thing) and reminded me of another forgettable Wynette copier in Deschanel. I was looking for more songs like Yorn's Cry for You from his last album, but what i got was a weird blend of both acoustic and electriconic songs that just came off poppy and fake when they weren't awful Country and Western. Things like a banjo playing in the song Wear and Tear even though most of the instruments were fake electronic noise. I love banjo, but hate most of the rest of what I was hearing. It was very confusing to my ears. Another example of the fake letdown that was this album was the song I Am the Cosmos. Just sitting there dealing with things like a clock ticking and all the extraneous ambient noise, like drum machines, was just awful. In fact, there was not a lot that was easy on the ears on Break up. Even their voices don't go well together. It's one thing to have a poorly laid out album if at least what they were singing was being sung by a pair of voices that harmonize sublimely. These two didn't go together vocally like peanut butter and jelly, they went together like peanut butter and spaghetti. The only song that even had faintly decent vocals was the tune Someday - but even that one wasn't good enough to keep on my Ipod. There wasn't a single song that was worth keeping, all were throwaways - which is a rather rare thing. I can usually find at least one song that i can keep with at least a 2 star quality rating.

Wow. I stumbled upon this cd, and having heard one of SJs not so hot Tom Waits covers, I almost skipped right over it. So, SO glad I didn't. The tunes are catching, the lyrics are fun, and sometimes quite heartfelt. "I Don't Know What to Do" is my favorite, followed closely by "Relator" and "Shampoo". Pete and Scarlett tell both sides of the story, capturing the sadness of letting go of love lost, and you finish the album with a sense of completion. And then play it again. The ONLY con is that it's merely 30 minutes long, and we don't have a follow up album. I would buy more from these two in a heartbeat.

This record is flawless. From the hit "relator", to deeper cuts like "shampoo" and "I don't know what to do", it grabs hold and doesn't let go. The production is fresh. pete and sj simply shine here.