Kane Fulton

Brotherly/sisterly love is evidently becoming a selling point when it comes to many of today's modern indie bands. The White Stripes proved that faux-sibling marketing can get speculative tongues wagging, resulting in a mass of confused music fans cashing in on the soap opera as opposed to the music itself. The Fiery Furnaces proved that musical siblings are equally capable of being just as musically bizarre as one another, and The Cribs showed us that having one brother singing can make no difference as all three singing at once. After all, what could please your parents more than not just one, but all two or three of their children becoming insanely paid rock stars. Looks like dad's going to get his long sought-after backyard carp pond after all.

It's a good job then, that recent brother/sister bands such as The Knife, and the wonderful, Irish duo Oppenheimer are bringing us good honest pop music devoid of pretence and gimmickry. 'Breakfast In NYC' is nothing groundbreaking or original, but it is a finely polished, solid pop song. Opening with the sort of dirty synth-line we have come to expect from fellow British bands such as Boy Kill Boy, or even the Kaiser Chiefs, it's not long before the first verse transcends into a gorgeous, vocally layered chorus. Sadly, it's after this chorus that the track seemingly runs out of ideas. After another nice, yet identical verse, a very short and forgettable middle eight is all that separates the song from the final chorus, and a disappointingly premature end. We know that pop songs are supposed to be short, but at two minutes twenty four seconds I can't help but feel that they could have squeezed in one more slightly varied verse, and another final chorus to give the song a bit more character and the length it deserved. Promising yet understated.

Rating:

8/10

Discuss this article in the forum