steering clear of the mainstream
since 2001

june 2010

review
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info opinion

Professor Pez

"We Found The Beach, Where Is The Ocean?" CD

Galant Records

Genres: indie pop, lo-fi

November 2006

We Found The Beach is the second full-length from Professor Pez, Norwegian lo-fi label Galant's signature act. This time around we get even more delicious pop music, this time even better produced and with a bit more energy and rock flare. The press release calls them a "happy Belle and Sebastian," which is a pretty decent description - cheery almost to a fault, PP makes lush, vaguely folk-tinged music with no aversion to strings and brass accompaniment. I'd describe the sound as fuller than that of B&S, but the common elements will probably endear fans of the band to this material. The vocals, meanwhile, have more in common with those of Elf Power's Andrew Rieger and Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes. One thing I noticed is that the naively fun-loving Professor Pez formula gets tiring after awhile; they don't have the uniqueness of Of Montreal or the psychedelic undertones of the Apples In Stereo to stave off tedium. Instead, We Found The Beach kind of plateaus as the type of album you pull out every once in awhile, when you're in the mood. There's no denying the fun in "What Do You Do?" and cutesy "Singing Computers" (a tale of musical doomsdayism), and as long as you don't let yourself get tired of this all, even the less notable songs brandish their charm.

mp3s (from galantrecords.com): the perfect test (video!), imperial airways, looking at stars

80%

Fun Fact: According to wikipedia, the name of PEZ candies originates from German the word Pfefferminz, or peppermint, which was the first PEZ flavour.

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 16 tracks, 41:40, distributed by the label, released 2005]