Cassette
Thu 2 Apr 2009
Cassette – The Jingle King
3/10
Cassette makes jangly country pop that’s warm and sweet like lemonade spilled on a sundress. But naturally they leave an annoying mark you can’t wash out. The most annoying thing I have found with Cassette in the past and now, with their second album The Jingle King, is that they are supremely inoffensive. They make at times beautiful and catchy country-tinged alt-pop, but they can so often seem utterly dire and non-confrontational, never expanding on any of their now well-worn ideas and simply staying safe the entire time. I’ve seen them countless times live and it’s always the same (they always seem to get on good bills, as they’re mates with bands like The Phoenix Foundation). It feels wrong to curse good-natured folk such as the guys in Cassette, but I wish they would step out of their shells and maybe try something a bit new and fresh. They’ve been called the most boring band in New Zealand for a reason. I’m all for good quality pop/rock song writing, but theirs is never anything new. In fact at times (see third track Shadow in particular) it almost sounds like a Samuel Flynn Scott or Phoenix Foundation covers band! Interestingly, a couple of the song titles come up wrongly on iTunes – track 4, which on the CD inlay reads Close To Me, comes up as You Can Go And Get Fucked, and track 6, Come True, appears on iTunes as Just A Dream. That is about the most notable observation one can make on this otherwise extremely lackluster release.
Sarah
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Somehow I think you may have missed the point of this band.
I don’t think they are trying to do anything new, just craft good songs and I think (and from reading your review) you agree. If you want to be challenged, confronted and perhaps even slightly offended you need to be listening to a completely other record. The new Mint Chicks is actually pretty good for example, not exactly challenging either though.
The Jingle King is a beautiful album which was obviously written with no agenda to confront you. I’ve bought a copy and I love it. Some of those tunes are truly beautiful. They’re just doing what they’ve always done and somehow I don’t get the feeling they’re out to push any boundaries and don’t care that they don’t.
I reckon you need to give it another listen with that in mind. You may even enjoy it. It will still stand up as a great album of good songs in years to come.