The Sing Songs- Sing Five Songs (EP)
6/10

When The Sing Songs first graced us with their presence in 2008 they had an exciting chic about them. Their songs were well constructed, witty and charming in a way that we hadn’t really heard from a New Zealand band before. The Brunettes sung about candyfloss and cars, but The Sing Songs sung about building websites and pushing prams, doing it with sense of jovial sarcasm. Their original version of ‘Pamphlet Baby’ became an instant favourite of mine; an unusual song about a woman whose child had died at birth and her subsequent job delivering pamphlets from a pram, a strange but growing trend across suburban New Zealand (the pram bit). A year later, The Sing Songs have reworked the song and included it on their debut EP. While it’s only a minor makeover, the dulling of the nylon stringed acoustic guitar is instantly noticeable along with a more acute flute and keyboard sound. The soft guitar strums surprisingly added a lot to the earlier version of the song, helping to make it a jangly pop number rather than the new prototype which sounds more like a church jingle. ‘Pamphlet Baby”s imperfections become even further exposed by ‘HTML”s faultless composition about the difficulties of understanding technological language. It’s The Sing Songs’ finest opus, removing twee pop’s traditional cutesy cardie complexity while maintaining a sense of nerdiness. Ending on such a high, the EP ends up becoming quite a frustrating listen. Their songwriting is world class, but unfortunately at times their instrumental compositions don’t quite reach the same high standard.
Nick

 

Posted by Nick Fulton under Album, Reviews
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