About Amanda Rush
Location: Dallas, Texas
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What happens when two folk singers fall in love and get married? They form a superstar indie folk-pop band called the Weepies.
Now, to say that they’re the greatest indie folk-pop band (which itunes proudly declares; their 2006 album Say I am You was the most downloaded folk album in eight countries) is kind of like saying that you’re the greatest documenter of the mating habits of tree sloths. It’s kind of a small genre. Big fish in an itty bitty pond, so to speak.
The album starts off strong; the opening of “Can’t Go Back Now” is melodious, inviting, and attention getting. “Can’t Go Back Now” is, in my opinion, the best track on the album – it sounds like a song you could easily see played over a vaguely sad moment on a CW show. Both Deb Talan and Steve Tannen contribute to vocals, and they harmonize very well.
For the rest of the album, Talan and Tannen take turns leading on vocals, but the album itself is the product of the passions of both musicians. They wrote the songs and played guitars together.
“Wish I Could Forget”, the album’s fourth track, deviates from the mellow, groovy sound. It is upbeat, a little pop-ier, but it is in the minority. “Little Bird” has a dreamy quality, while “Takes So Long” explores the more country side of pop. The album’s final track, “All this Beauty”, plays to a seventies influence. I also found it vaguely annoying that the CD closed with a song that explored the concept of too much beauty – it felt a little like The Weepies’s commentary on their own album.
The songs blend well together and would make an excellent CD to alternately drift away and bounce to. The album’s strength, however, is also its weakness; while the songs mesh beautifully, it gives the album as a whole a featureless quality – when nothing stands out, nothing can stand out.
