School for the Dead/The Fawns

Last month I wrote about the Bourgeois Heroes EP on February Records and Rub Wrongways, who co-released the EP, was kind enough to get in touch and share some of their other releases with me.

A Telephone Built for Two, the sophomore album from School for the Dead, offers 11 indie pop jams for your approval. Henning Ohlenbusch's vocals are clear and self-assured, though his lyrics suggest a sense of interior confusion (like on the albums second track, "Feel Like I Should," where he wonders, "Why can't I feel the way I should?" or "This Time It Looks Good," a song about tenuous, yet promising, new beginnings.) Ohlenbusch's vocals almost remind me of someone, though I can't put my finger on who for the life of me...

At first, Telephone Built for Two seems about as straightforward as an indie pop record comes, but every now and then School for the Dead throws a curveball (like the harsh noise-collage that interrupts "Save My Place" for just a moment at around a minute and thirty seconds in.) Every time I found myself ready to write the album off, something brought my attention back (like the They Might Be Giants-esque "Journal of Lies," which I actually had to Google to double check that it wasn't a cover.)

You can preview A Telephone Built for Two in its entirety & purchase is here

School for the Dead's official site
School for the Dead on MySpace

A Nice Place to Be by The Fawns starts out with "Friends," a song that sounds like a lush tribute to The Softies or a lost track from The Innocence Mission. A Nice Place to Be sounds pleasantly familiar & would make great background music for Sunday morning breakfast and coffee. Honestly, it's hard for me to find something to say about A Nice Place to Be other than, "It's nice," which certainly doesn't seem fair to The Fawns. It's definitely evocative of soft, lo-fi indie pop with female leads -- think the aforementioned Softies & Innocence Mission & add: Laura Watling. While The Fawns might be sonically similar to these groups/artists, it's hard for me to think of them in the same way -- overall, they just don't have the same pull for me. That said, there are certainly a few gems on A Nice Place to Be ("I Can't Wait" definitely caught my ear.)

You can preview A Nice Place to Be in its entirety & purchase it here.

The Fawns' official site
The Fawns on MySpace
The Fawns on Facebook