It’s obvious why L.A.’s The Whispertown 2000 have made friends with indie princess Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley). Their music is firmly entrenched in Lewis’ brand of lazy, sparse, fist-raised feminine country-folk.
Videos by American Songwriter
Label: ACONY
[Rating: 3]
It’s obvious why L.A.’s The Whispertown 2000 have made friends with indie princess Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley). Their music is firmly entrenched in Lewis’ brand of lazy, sparse, fist-raised feminine country-folk. But while Lewis’ honey-touched voice locks you in, W2000’s lead vocalist Morgan Nagler’s grinds you to a halt. Its wayward pitchiness is an unneeded distraction (Nagler’s voice is actually quite nice when she wants it to be). On album-opener “103,” its squeakiness begs you to skip ahead; on album-closer, “Mountain,” it demands you to hit the disc changer. Certainly not the best way to bookend an album. The record doesn’t really begin to spin ‘til “Erase the Lines,” the sixth track, which harks back to the Kerosene Hat days of Cracker. W2000 hit the bulls-eye on raucous “Lock and Key,” equal parts simple, cohesive and catchy rock. But with only a handful of listenable tracks here, it doesn’t take ESP to think EP not LP.
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