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Artist: The Dalloways

Album: Penalty Crusade

Publication: Splendid

Category: Review

Writer: Billy Gil

Date: 04/04/2005

Website: http://www.splendidmagazine.com/  

Review Link: http://www.splendidmagazine.com/review.html?reviewid=11117509622135

Like a casually gorgeous waitress serving Sunday afternoon coffee, The Dalloways serve up pretty California dream-pop like a delicacy on Penalty Crusade. Gerhard Enns's proudly nasal vocals carry the tunes to romantic heights, while guitars and keyboards whisper softly to each other in the background, unwilling to break the spell they've created.

"Clarissa, Dear" and "Marriage Arranged" try to make you swoon with just the right minor chord placement. They're lovely, but the songs work better when the band just let it happen. "Cotty's House" benefits from a dash of Stereolab, specifically in its more daring use of electronic sound, splashier drums and swooping female backup vocals you long for during the rest of the album.

The Dalloways' intricate arrangements and narratives suggest that they'd like to seem like a reincarnated Smiths or mid-period Belle & Sebastian. However, they're more earnest than clever—more like the Ocean Blue or Trembling Blue Stars, blissfully unaware of their naïveté. All the better; you know what to expect from The Dalloways, and they deliver on songs like "Ice Capades", lazily singing about a "jaded Olympian from a country the war destroyed" over bells and wintry acoustic guitars. Sure, they're stuck in 1989, but some sounds never go out of style.