The Lovetones - Stars

Sun 9th May, 2004 in Music Reviews

Stars is a five track EP following on from The Lovetones’ debut album, Be What You Want. The sound is fuzzy, psychedelic pop. The tracks are all mid-tempo and sail smoothly along into a world of coloured flowers, rainbows and glitter. The result is an EP which sounds like a re-working of something that has been done many times before.

In fact, The Lovetones are scary-ily reminiscent of The Beatles, with little other obvious influences. Now don’t get me wrong… I love The Beatles and if singer/songwriter Matthew J.Tow had been around in the sixties, then I’m sure he would have been a huge success. The Lovetones do a modern take on psychedelic pop music, with electronic sitars and digital effects, but the overall sound remains fairly unoriginal. The lyrics talk about love (of course), and stars, and yesterday…once again, nothing new. The vocals sound slightly dreary in the title track, and hence would not be the strongest song on the EP. Track four, This Is Why You Love Me, is very similar to The Beatles classic, Here Comes the Sun.

The Lovetones do however, pull together some strong melodies, and there is a consistency throughout their songs. If they set out to produce a pop record in the vein of The Beatles and late singer-songwriter Elliot Smith, then they have achieved their goal. The production of the EP is crisp, and the fuzzy guitars and lead vocals have been mastered precisely. There are some big arrangements, and a fullness of sound from a band with only three members. The tunes are catchy, and the lyrics remain in your head after a couple of listens. For this reason, they will probably get some decent radio airplay, in particular, the second track, Inside A Dream which is more upbeat and finger-clickin.

The Lovetones do what they do well. But it is not a striking EP, and one that will probably blur into the background of many CD collections.