Glassglue — Fantods
German born singer Marcel Stoetzler takes center stage, playing the shy, socially awkward overanalyzer of social interactions, with such blunt and overly worded lyrics "I wish I had not missed the class in which they taught the making of flattering remarks" (from the disgustingly cute "My Last Parachute"). He engages in such embarrassingly naive cliches as "I want to give you for a gift half of the love I have for you, so that each one of us was possessed by an equal measure of love." Elsewhere he states, "I don't even want to write this song / All I want is to look at your face." These lyrics are transcribed word for word, and such wallowing self pitying excesses are found in most every track on the album.
I'm not one to find such maudlin self-flagellation endearing, though I cannot deny Marcel's earnestness. I would enjoy his performance a lot more if he didn't have such a whimper in every word he uttered, and focused a bit more on consistency of pitch. His voice is mixed louder than the rest of the band, and he seems to greedily draw my attention to himself every moment the record is playing. I tend to get more out of the songs with less of a lyrical focus or sentimental bent, as it allows my ears to hone in on the band's unique form of triplet heavy, arpeggiated dissonance.
Fans of Slint, Deerhoof or classic fusion keyboardist like Chick Corea will not be disappointed by the decisively jerky groove and heady guitar and keyboard interplay on "Fantods". There's a lot of subtle gradations of emotion in the hazy, jazz inflected tonalities of this album, and as a result I find myself quite disappointed whenever I realize that Marcel is whining yet again about his lack of success in romantic relationships. These compositions deserve less mundane and redundant subject matter.
In conclusion, there's a lot of very written and played music on this album, but only a couple songs I can actually enjoy in their current form, something I find quite frustrating. Singer Marcel Stoetzler is certainly not my cup of tea, and I find him utterly impossible to ignore or tune out. As good as the other players in this band are, I doubt I could count myself a fan of this band unless they outright replaced him.