Little Stabs of Happiness

Little Stabs of Happiness
The Vanity Test

This is a cool album. Reminds me of the Magnetic Fields at times, especially in the deep male vocals. This music has a sense of humor, but is also quite lovely and sad at times. Some really cool tracks here, 1, 3, 5 and 8, especially.

1. ***Female distorted vocals and deep male talk-singing. Spooky sort of guitar and bass lines. Haunting track. Piano and guitar chorus. Pretty damn cool.
2. Some fiddle! Whoa! Peppy guitar underneath. Another really cool track. Male vox.
3. **More strings, this time distorted. Sort of an Arabian Nights feel, some pounding bass underneath. Breathy female backing vocals. Pretty damn spooky. Also, awesome. Is the term jerk-offokay?
4. Begins with some horns and a poppy sort of melody, almost like a Magnetic Fields song, but then the chorus breaks out with messy guitar. Ends with piano and violin.
5. ***A capella with punctuations of piano and horns. Then the horns and drums come in. Sounds like a cabaret number, joined by female vocals. Pretty hot stuff. Bob Fosse would be pleased.
6. Strings, guitar and tinkly piano. Another pretty, haunting track with an almost medieval feel. A chorus joins in and there is a really nice string and piano slow-down in the middle.
7. Organ and guitar picking. Slow and wistful. More strings join in. Some low cello, and spacey noise adds some strangeness half-way through.
8. **Low humming, some guitar flourishes. Sad, bitter vocals. Lovely and sad. Picks up with some drums and more guitar.
9. Funny vocals and bleepy background. Some funny sound effects and funny use of horns. Reminds me of the circus. Cool ending on this one.
10. Drum-machine beat, some keyboard, heavily distorted vocals. A minute's worth of beats and noise at the end.