Candle To Your Eyes, the third album by Canadian band Shapes and Sizes, has some great moments but is essentially a bit of a mess, mish-mashing indie-rock, Janis Joplin blues, Bristol trip-hop and early 1980s new wave with uneven results.
The album, which is released on Asthmatic Kitty, starts off excellently with ‘Tell Your Mum’. It is such a shame that the next track is so weak and the rest of the album fails to live up to this start.
Like Morcheeba or Portishead at their peak ‘Tell Your Mum’ is a striking and original mix of dub bass and radar bleeping delayed guitar. Lead vocalist Caila Thompson-Hannant’s Skye Edwards from Morcheeba-esque vocals excel here.
I’d like to have heard more of the same but instead on second track ‘Sing Them Songs’ Thomson-Hannant hands lead vocals duty to co-vocalist and guitarist Rory Seydel. While not a bad singer Seydel is far too much like many other male indie vocalists. The track is just another non descript indie number, really unimaginative.
by Joe Lepper, July 2010
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