MicShazam

The Divine Comedy - Casanova (1996)



I don't enjoy the caroony vocal delivery. He constantly sounds as if he's forcing his voice to sound deeper and more Roy Orbison-like than it really is. Like he's doing a parody of said singer.
It has the unfortunate side effect of making it all sound like a comedy album (no pun intended).

Too much of a Tom Jones/Las Vegas entertainer vibe to this. I feel like this should be playing to a crowd of tasteless rich people on a cruise ship.
The strings sound phony and sterile and the music is in general just too bloodless to leave any impact on me.

It's not the type of music that bothers me, it's specifically how lacking in personality and flavor this album is. I find it generally agreeable, but I hope the artist has some other albums that demonstrate his creative vision and skills better.

I feel a bit bad for crapping all over this album, but it hits several pet peeves of mine in a bad way. It kind of exemplifies an artistic sensibility that I'm very
much looking for the opposite of.



Further silly nitpicks
- In one track, he's whistling out of tune.
- In some tracks, he's sort of acting out lines while half-singing, and it doesn't work at all. Especially not where he's sort of affecting a fake laugh.
- I've complained about the fake sounding strings already, but I hate them so much by the end of the album that I'm complaining about them again.
- Both the drums and the bass are so utilitarian in nature that they do almost nothing to add to the experience.
- Due to the prancing and posturing and occasional attempts at a seductive sort of persona, I feel like he's a poor man's Bryan Ferry at times.
- The generally overproduced, flat vibe of the music really makes the 50+ minute run time drag.
- His falsetto is allright. The deeper he tries to sing, the more unconvincing it sounds.
- Spoken word passage around the 41:00 mark is not funny or interesting.
- Said spoken word passage is followed by a track that sounds like the intro to a boring British soap opera.



Listened to: 1.0 times. I can't stand another round of this. It makes me miss previous week's album.

Rating: 3/10, which makes me realize I was way too hard on the Hiatus Kaiyote album.