It is one thing to blatantly imitate a band or style; it is another to not be terribly good at it. As a psychedelic pop\/shoegazer outfit that openly displays their love of very specific musical influences, Brooklyn-based Heaven is a bit of both of the above.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s sophomore release All Love Is Blue<\/i>, continues in the same musical trajectory as their 2013 debut Telepathic Love<\/i>. It closely follows the distinct stylistic elements of bands like The Stone Roses and The Jesus And Mary Chain, whose psychedelia-flavored brand of pop was seminal during their heyday. Sadly, however, rehashing the same doesn\u2019t quite produce the same magic for Heaven.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sun Shines Thru In The Evening\u201d and \u201cSpringtimes\u201d are too badly imitative, as vocalist Matt Sumrow sounds like an old and tired Ian Brown pretending like it is the \u201880s while treacly guitars play lifelessly in the background.<\/p>\n
The cover of The Boo Radleys cut \u201cFirefly\u201d might sound more muscular and hence, more modern. Still, it is undeniably close to the original but without the freshness and youthful vigor of the former. As a result, it ends up unfortunately as a forgettable interpretation of a song that Heaven obviously cherishes and loves.<\/p>\n
The closing ballad \u201cPeaceful\u201d sums up the dullness of All Love Is Blue<\/i>, as Heaven\u2019s attempt to express aching melancholy in beautiful melodiousness that Brit-pop did so effectively bombs badly because of trite songwriting and vapid singing and musicianship.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, what is great about this album is that on the stronger cuts \u2013 \u201cNever The Moment,\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s Closer Than Everyone,\u201d and \u201cAll Love Is Blue\u201d \u2013 they do not sound a whole lot like other bands. The combination of dance-y drums and soaring guitars in the backdrop of droning synthesizers, along with Sumrow\u2019s raspy deadpan vocals, which results in a sort of glam rock music style, is not only unique, but it sounds great and fits the group very well. These tracks exude a certain carefree energy and self-assuredness, which is missing on the album\u2019s other derivative numbers. If only this sense of originality and spiritedness dictated most of the record rather than just a handful of songs.<\/p>\n
Heaven\u2019s adopted music style was novel and endearing when it originally came out a few decades ago. But merely reinterpreting the same without substantially adding anything new makes it sound merely stale and boring. Such is the case of All Love Is Blue<\/i>, an album that sounds all too familiar to be even remotely as endearing as the work that it has committed so hard to follow in the footsteps of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":33537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10212],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-45358","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-heaven","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45358"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45358"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}