LA SERA - La Sera

Much ado about nothing. I'm borrowing one of the most hackneyed quotes around to introduce the debut of La Sera, the much-talked-about American outfit led by Katy 'Kickball' Goodman, the fetching bassist of Vivian Girls. The band's curious Italian name comes from a phrase overheard during a concert in Italy, this past summer no less, brought home like a sonic souvenir that must have stirred something in Goodman's heart. Slack evening happenings of a drowsy youth, childhood memories spent listening to the Mamas And Papas, the Drifters, the Shirelles, and all that '60s pop that permeates this self-titled debut.

Predictably, the fledgling band transforms the sugary sunniness of those years, blurring everything into a slowed-down vision (complete with Wareham-style guitar effects), losing the freshness in the process and gaining... it's hard to say what.

It opens with the pale shadow of a Poe quote on "Beating Heart", amid the weary coils of an already-tired Warpaint-style darkness that La Sera never fully commit to, before landing, on the back of an irritating single-note arpeggio and a flat angelic chorus, on a riff that, rather than stinging, flattens everything out into total banality. Perhaps the album's only virtue is that it doesn't overstay its welcome, at least sticking to conventional song lengths, with each track clocking in at around two minutes.

Barely-there caresses, rendered deathly narcoleptic by Goodman's voice and delivery, and often built on melodic ideas that are, if not childish, at least heavily indebted to others ("Left This World", "You're Going To Cry", even the single "Never Come Around").

This La Sera proves lacking in both form and substance: the threadbare arrangements feel less like a conscious choice than a necessity. By comparison, the Woodsist crowd (Woods, Ganglians, Ducktails etc.) come across as daring experimentalists and masterful composers...

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17/02/2011