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Frequent SeahorseMoongear Independent It's easy not to take Frequent Seahorse seriously; for one thing, they're called Frequent Seahorse. They're also a synth duo, which is hardly going to give them hefty rock cred in Adelaide, and they write songs with titles like Cat Stuck In A Trumpet. Yes, there's humour to what they're doing, but to write them off as a novelty act would be to do them a disservice: there are certain similarities with bands like They Might Be Giants and Ween in that the humour is there to help support a lyrical conceit, rather than to evoke a wa-hey chuckle (as per, say, more directly comedic locals like The Dairy Brothers). Of course, that's not to ignore the fact that they write love songs based around the path of a neutron and suffocating in space, not to mention the aforementioned Cat Stuck In A Trumpet ("My girlfriend's going to kill me, 'cause it's her kitty-cat / My best friends' going to kill me, 'cause it's his trumpet"). However, Moongear is a sweetly low-key opener where their bleak humour shines through ("since I was a fetus my heart has been broken"), and the closing Dee Dee Da is genuinely sweet piece of burbling synths and plaintive lyrics. The production is appropriately 80s-thin and if Andrew Burnard's vocals are wavery and occasionally off-key, they're no less charming for that. If you like the odd smirk in your pop music, you'd be wise to give this a listen.  |
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