On
the Good Life's 2004
Lovers Need Lawyers EP the band pares down its sound and comes across as a tough post-punk band rather than dramatic '80s synth pop revivalists. The electronic textures and careful arrangements are mostly gone, singer and bandleader
Tim Kasher no longer sounds like he is channeling
Robert Smith of
the Cure, and the general level of despair and theater is dialed down considerably. Listeners who loved the broken, baroque drama of the first two albums may feel let down, but they shouldn't really because the songs are just as good and the arrangements are still a cut above the usual indie rock band.
Kasher seems to have replaced his melancholy with a good old dose of anger that bleeds through in "Entertainer," a bitter, self-lacerating sideswipe at being a musician, the bitter divorce song "Lovers Need Lawyers," and the bitter farewell song "Leaving Omaha." Elsewhere he opens up the sound in a way that the intimate nature of the band's sound would have precluded. On the sweeping epic "For the Love of the Song," the angular, conversational "Friction!," and the bubbly "Always a Bridesmaid," apart from
Kasher's vocal it sounds like a different band entirely. In a good way.
Lovers Need Lawyers is a promising step forward that puts the band on the same trail to greatness as
Spoon and
the Anniversary. Hopefully they make it. ~ Tim Sendra