Lovers Electric - Lovers Electric
When I first heard this album, I was a little surprised that Lovers Electric had opened for OMD back in 2007. Even though Lovers Electric are classified as "electro pop", I didn't hear the synths comparison as much to OMD originally. At least not on this album, but I did later on, and more on that to come. This album seemed pretty demo-ish, with the drums and guitars sounding more pronounced in the sound over the synths, even if the sound overall was not that full, and a bit one dimensional as others here have noted as well.
@southamptonblue's note about seeing this band as the "unfamiliar opener" also got me thinking to the bands I found and enjoyed in a similar manner that were a pleasant surprise. The list isn't long, but it's a special one to me that includes Maccabees, Middle Kids, and Muse as good starts. Hearing something new and on stage live for the first time was both memorable and exciting in all of those cases.
On this, I liked the first two songs, a lot. "Honey" as others have noted, is really a standout opener with that distinct guitar to start things off. It has attitude. Lovers Electric were described back in 2007 as "80s influenced alternative dance pop", and that rang true a lot. In trying to pinpoint a vocal comparison, all I could come up with was Edie Brickell. I know she's not Australian and Edie's songs sound different overall, but I was hearing the vocal similarities the most in the beginning on songs like "In Love" and "Whatever You Want".
The song "Whatever You Want" after a few listens had me notice they had a 2008 album titled the same, and that's where the real discovery began. 9 songs off of this self titled album were remade a year later for the
Whatever You Want release, and even shuffled in a different sequence. "Closer" was no longer that, and "Honey" does not start things off. Those songs were much fuller and had extra synths added for a richer sound. Spotify may list that album as "2017", but I verified from CD images online it was indeed released in 2008.
Were those versions better? Not especially in some cases, as I think I preferred the more raw versions on this self-titled album, but I thought the reworked versions and release of were worth noting. I hadn't seen this mentioned prior here in the reviews, but I found this worth the interesting comparison given this album that wasn't listed on the wiki page on them had mostly been redone a year later. Songs from this not on the later
WYW album included "Not Good Enough" (apparently it wasn't), "I Don't Know", and "It's OK" (apparently not).
"Morning Sun" is another shout-out for a song that I thought was better on this self-titled album, and I really enjoyed the lyrics "stay here, let the light show through, who you really are, and what we might become". "Closer" was one I enjoyed more on
WYW, as David Turley's harmonizing vocals on that song and a few others were more pronounced there, and not as much in the background as on this selection.
Overall, I've listened to this way more than 3 times, as I suppose they've become a guilty pleasure of mine as well, despite the production limitations heard here. It's a
7.0/10 for me and an enjoyable week, and I could see having the same scenario and reaction to my wife taking me to see OMD and likely enjoying Lovers Electric more too.
