The Strawberry Smell - These guys are from France, although you'd never know it by listening to them. It's pretty straightforward pop on here. Nothing spectacular but nothing horrible either. Mostly retro sounding pop with some nice harder rock tunes thrown in. Keyboards give it a spacey feel a lot of times. Guitars range from acoustic to heavy rock electric. Vocals are slightly distorted on a lot of tracks giving it that airy feel. Overall I thought it was ok. A few tunes stand out and others I found to be quite boring. My Picks: 3, 5, 6, 10, 12
Katie P. 10/15/01

1) Midtempo laid-back guitar strumming. Mellow pop. Nice vocal harmonies and backups.
2) Fast midtempo with quiet instruments and vocals. Guitar strumming and a nice keyboard part too. Catchy lyrics with a general bouncy feel. About half through it slows a bit.
3) Uptempo with a bouncy rock feel. Nice harmonies on vocals.
4) Uptempo and bouncy. Again has a nice rock/pop feel. Plenty of vocal layers and nice keyboards. The whole thing has a sort of vibrato, shaky feel.
5) Midtempo pounding. Vocals are slightly distorted. Definitely more rawk than pop in this one. Heavy guitars give it a bit more of an edge.
6) Fades in with guitars to a nice bass line and a bouncy fast midtempo tune. Cool vocals with some bloopy keyboards here and there. Vocals sound very airy and floating.
7) Uptempo bouncy tune with keyboards out front. Very retro feel. Poppy and cute. Heavier feel at the end.
8) Midtempo pop. Sort of drags. Catchy lyrics.
9) Midtempo with a nice driving beat. Catchy hooks.
10) Cool keyboards with a nice groovy beat. Uptempo tune with catchy lyrics. Sweet break section.
11) Starts with bloopy computer sounds and abruptly goes into an uptempo bouncy pop song. Slows to a midtempo and then picks back up to the nice bounce a few times.
12) Guitars and beep noises to start. Then the whole band hits in with a solid uptempo pop-rock beat. Solid keyboards. Catchy lyrics.
13) Quiet guitar strumming. Midtempo and lazy. Slightly distorted vocals. Spacey floating feel. Seems to end and then an electronic bloop fades to the end.