Gnarls Barkley - The OddCouple

Fri 11th Apr, 2008 in Music Reviews

Combine the emotions of a gospel singer with modern, experimental sounds and Gnarls Barkley’s second album, The Odd Couple, becomes the final product. The duo lives up to the alternative soul genre, blending romantic vibes with chilled beats. Songs flow from one to the other, bringing a set of tracks that makes the album a steady collection. The Odd Couple, however, gives no standout track that makes it more special from their debut album. Instead, they seem to have raced through their recordings that make the entire album half as memorable as their hit single Crazy.

I can’t, however, discount the good tracks in The Odd Couple. Going On is reminiscent of an Outkast song, with the upbeat clapping in the background as the duo mixes a Queen -esque guitar riff in the beginning. Near the one-minute mark, Cee-Lo’s unmasked solo vocals lasting only a few seconds is a good insert.

No Time Soon starts out with an acoustic guitar, making it a unique album ballad that has subtle 8-bit sounds thrown in the mix. The talent of multi-instrumentalist Danger Mouse is recognised in She Knows where a fusion of complementary sounds and instruments, including a flute, are blended well together.

The track Open Book contains sample elements of 1960s lounge pop singer Francoise Hardy’s Traume, but Cee-Lo sounds like he’s chanting – a creepy track which has a lot of monotonous repetition only to change it up with him screaming, “Come on!” unnecessarily.

Wondering why he started out as a rapper, I still give much credit to Cee-Lo’s powerful vocals. He adapts his voice to the theme of every song; with all the sound engineering and production placed in the album, Cee-Lo’s voice is still incomparable. The musical collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo is brilliant. But The Odd Couple doesn’t match up to their partnership.