CD Review: Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple
May 27, 2008 10:22 PM Ken Micallef (Writer)
Though Danger Mouse
cancelled a Remix interview hours
before its appointed time, the producer refusing to discuss gear or production
(though photos of the duo's studio were revealed on nytimes.com), we're not
bitter: The Odd Couple is truly brilliant.
With no obvious follow-up hit to "Crazy," the album instead rums amok
with heavily delayed, weird backward samples ("Would Be Killer"), a
panoply of keyboard textures (Magnus chord organ, ARP Axxe and Wurlitzer and
Rhodes electric pianos), demented wall-of-sound vocals ("Open Book")
and a generally experimental esthetic. Like the cast of the '60s musical Hair lending their go-go boots and
psychedelic vocal choruses to themes of isolation, rejection and bitterness, The Odd Couple is deliciously unhappy
listening. Harmony vocals straight off a Mamas and the Papas record fill
"Surprise," along with strummed acoustic guitars, claves and
reverb-heavy guitar slashes. Like much of the album, "No Time Soon"
uses what sounds like live instruments meshed with drum programming that bumps
and ticks like insane fireflies. Beauty abounds as well, as in the
Debussy-modeled "She Knows," with its nauseous keyboards, crippled
beat and ghostly lyrics killing us softly.
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