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Sep 19, 2011 Slow Club By Laura Studarus

If Slow Club’s Paradise were an animal, it would be a puppy with a sarcastic streak. There’s just no getting around how cute Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor’s retro-sounding boy/girl harmonies are. Throw in a song about a case of mistaken gender identity (“Dog”) and they should be prepared for a sea of adjectives better suited to cuteoverload.com that will inevitably wash over every review.

But to stop there would be a great disservice to a band whose tongues are clearly placed in cheek (even if their mouths are full of dessert). Like the class clown falling for the geek, their music plays like the scrappier version of Jenny and Johnny, or the less precious cousins of She & Him. “I can see you looking at me/You’ve got the brains, I’ve got the body,” Taylor sings on “Where I’m Walking” with an audible roll of the eyes. Slow Club is aware of their twee appeal—and uses it like a double-edged sword, throwing folk guitar solos, string sections, and ballads into the mix like a particularly well-timed punchline. (www.myspace.com/slowclub)

Author rating: 8/10