One-Two - Love Again

Sat 15th Jul, 2006 in Music Reviews

Save for Daft Punk, and to a lesser extent Phoenix and Air, a lack
of recent French music has broken through the UK and US market barriers and been
embraced by the global music scene. Not that music needs to be embraced by the global
music scene for it to be good; nonetheless, it has made me wonder why there are so few
French releases on the global market: Is it a language barrier thing? Is it their bitter rivalry
with the UK? Or maybe the French sense of nationalism is so strong that they would prefer
not to crack these markets, and enjoy their own music all to themselves? I don’t
know the answer. Whatever the reason, it might not be a surprise that those French
releases that do aim for global market penetration, would attempt to use this protected
heritage as a basis to launch a novel sound onto the market, as, for example, Daft Punk,
Phoenix and Air did. 

The problem with One-Two’s full-length release
Love Again is, that they have tried too hard to mash up all of their favorite
artists, into one disc, that although may be fun and catchy, lacks continuity, and lacks any
sense of identity. Claiming to be a fusion between 60’s pop like The Beatles or
The Beach Boys, with electro-rock like ‘LCD Soundsystem’ or ‘Soulwax’, Love
Again opens with the singles ‘Oh Yeah, Allright’ which is sure to turn some heads in the
remix world, and inspire some crazy-dancing in festival tents; and leads well into the
second electro-pop-rock anthem ‘Heady melody’ which complete with catchy ‘doo-doo, woo-
whoo’s’ and a dirty, heavily distorted electro riff. One-Two also mash a British rock sound,
imagine a Bloc Party or The Clash electro remix, into this fun electro-pop. In
‘O-hot brain’, one of the albums strongest tracks that would get lovers of all genres dancing
around like crazy. By the time this track clocks on, it becomes apparent how much of a pity
it is that One-Two didn’t run with this sound for the rest of the album. P>

Unfortunately, the lowlights of the album destroy the high built up by the otherwise
palatable display of electro-pop-rock. The quirky, disorienting ‘have you ever been blue’
with a slow beat, phasing into a random electro mix-up could have been sustained as an
intermission type, if it wasn’t for the other nonsensical inclusions like ‘10 a.m.’—an
attempt at an acoustic folk song with an Air-esque undertone, that, obviously, has no place
with the rest of the funky up-beat tracks; as well as ‘Emma needs a love song’, which opens
with a similar, random acoustic vibe and then tries to changeover to a chessy synth backing,
which unfortunately just doesn’t stack well at all.

But, hey, before getting too
harsh, I should probably remind myself that there is a possibility that these tracks aren’t
really lowlights, and maybe, this is just an aspect of French music that I’m not aware of, or
that I don’t understand because so little French music that I’m aware of lands onto the
shores of Australia. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and the reason that so little French
music lands onto these shores is that there are too many lowlights on their albums. Sorry,
but again, I don’t know the answer.