A brand new girl/boy duo to fill the gap in the market left by Dollar. Well, okay, it’s not quite a gaping void, but one nonetheless now occupied by RCA’s new signings The Honeymoon. The Camden pair are currently promoting their debut album with support slots on Nelly Furtado‘s tour.
It’s easy to see the appeal – with sweet harmonies swathed in reverb, tinkling acoustic guitars, pseudo techno drum machines and silky smooth ballads, The Honeymoon are the ultimate ‘come down’ band, designed to be played on Sunday mornings when by people who’ve come back from clubbing at somewhere like Ministry of Sound.
And they have other pop star advantages – singer Thorum Magnusdottir is, to put it mildly, very easy on the eye, whose voice and looks fluctuate between Nina Persson (The Cardigans) and Emma Bunton. Male contingent Wayne Murray (who apparently got into music via Nirvana and yet writes songs which are as far from Nirvana as it is possible to get) is equally pretty and gives a Richard Carpenter-esque accompaniment to Thorum’s sugary vocals. Not only that, but the pair have a distinct ‘are they/aren’t they a couple’ air about them which is bound to cause some intrigue.
Most easily filed under ‘lounge pop’ as defined by the likes of St Etienne, Dubstar et al, Dialogue is at times fairly pedestrian with a few flashes of pop brilliance. Opening track Passive Aggressive takes its cue from the harmonies of All Saints or the Sugababes in some of their darker moments.
By far and away the best song on the album, Reconcile has a Chris Isaak style guitar riff and takes the classic duet lyrical structure of a couple talking over their marital strife (although a rather inappropriate f-word may prevent its potential as a single). Truth Hurts sounds like Girls Aloud song (not necessarily a bad thing, although smacks a little of manufactured pop).
The album gets a little tired towards the end. Act Like you Know Her and Out in the Open are a little on the cloying side as strings are introduced into the mix and the tempo is relaxed even further.
The vocal harmonies and general production is often fey but if you like your pop easy on the tempo and heavily sugared, Dialogue could be your soundtrack of the summer.
The Honeymoon MP3s or CDs
The Honeymoon on Spotify
