Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Heart it races, August 15, 2007
Warning: Architecture in Helsinki are no longer twee. Whether this upsets you will depend on whether you like twee pop or not.
Admittedly, there are some twee moments in "Places Like This," and the whole album is colourful, sunny and catchy. But the Aussie band is rocking a more funky, rock'n'roll sound in their third album -- while it's not as winning or cohesive as their previous work, it is still entertainingly crazy and colourful electro-island-funk-rock.
It opens with what sounds like firecrackers exploding (or a keyboard dying a violent death), and segues quickly into a funky-electronic rocker ("So imagine the change/we spoke, it filled the air/so with the north-reflected southern light..."). But things really get going in the colourful calypso-pop of "Heart It Races," with its nonsensical lyrics about knotted laces and winter tans.
The songs that follow are a bit less funky -- electro/horn/dancepop, rollicking guitar melodies, strange ambient raps, and a bubbling song called "Underwater." Things get a little unhinged by the plodding, thumping "Lazy (Lazy)," but the band pulls things back together with sunny island pop of "Nothing's Wrong" and colourful rock of "The Same Old Innocence."
I can only assume that the new more electro-rocky sound is what prompted two members of the band to depart last year. While the first two albums Architecture in Helsinki made were just fun, frolicksome sunny pop, "Places Like This" explores a whole different kind of music than before -- sunny indie-rockers are woven in as well. It has some slack moments, but the overall confection is more fun than not.
It relies pretty heavily on some solid drums, colourful analog beats and glockenspiel, which can ring out in retro splendour, ripples, bubbles, dancey beats, or even blossom into a haze of psychedelic charm. There are also undercurrents of graceful guitar, and choruses of all sorts of brass just under the surface -- not to mention those great calypso drums in the second song.
I don't entirely understand what these guys are singing -- just as well, since most of what they sing is kinda nonsensical ("It's wicked where you tread/Shot an arrow in your head/Since the apple wasn't there"). But the vocals never get boring -- falsetto wails, deep croons, melodramatic pronouncements, and indie-girl/boy duets.
"Places Like This" has some bruised spots, where new explorations didn't really pay off. But the overall album is a fun, rollicking vacation in the sun -- very charming, and very different.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Architecture in Helsinki, January 12, 2009
I saw this band perform on IFC after the Henry Rollins Show a few weeks ago and I really liked their unique sound. Honestly, I bought this album because it was the cheapest of the bunch and I had only heard 2 songs so I didn't know what to expect. I was actually pretty impressed. The band is like the B-52's meet They Might Be Giants, it's good fun music. I recommend this band to anyone who likes light-hearted indie rock
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Work on it ! It is worth it in the end, August 30, 2007
"Places Like This" is an album that requires some work, particularly if you are new to the band and haven't had the first two albums to get accustomed to the slightly strained and more than a little strange.
"Architecture In Helsinki" are a six piece band from Melbourne -- whose members are now scattered around the globe -- who seem to randomly play whatever instruments come to hand at the time, which means if nothing else, they are a very talented bunch of musicians who really do know how to play and make music.
At times you would be forgiven when listening to their third album, for thinking that they had kind of thrown things together in a ramshackle way, almost floundering through the songs trying to find a certain sound or something to underpin the songs.
This album is like a frantic, frenetic musical fandango.
At barely 30 minutes long some could argue why bother going to the effort of designing such a lovely album cover, but still, things kick off with "Red Turned White" and the sound is noticeably snappier, with an increasing rock sound exposed in some places whilst at other times things sound decidedly more urban.
They make music and trade ideas by instant messaging, which may go some way to explaining the cornucopia of sounds and instruments that permeates this can't-sit-still album.
Just when you think you've pinned it down a trombone solo or a steel drum crescendo crashes in to seriously alter your expectations.
All of which makes for insanely invigorating party music that will eat up lengthy car journeys, but repeated listenings reveal a certain slightly clinical lack of soul.
"Nothing's Wrong" is the nearest they get to a straight up pop song, this is helped by lead female vocals on the track as a result the song is far more melodic and less angular in nature.
My favourite tracks are "Heart It Races" and "Like It Or Not"
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