Search - Undersea Poem :: Undersea Poem (Dig)

Pretty yet insubstantial

William Merrill | San Antonio, TX United States | 03/01/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"(3 & 1/2 stars) Undersea Poem is Chris & Juju's new band since the end of Mosquitos, their previous incarnation best known for the breezy bossa-pop hit, "Boombox." The word "breezy" is also a good descriptor for the 17 tracks on the debut Undersea Poem CD, as essentially all of the songs are light and fluffy, many with wordless vocals or whistling in place of the singing. In fact, the album is split about 50-50 between instrumentals and songs with words. A typical song is the aptly named "Queen of Water," where an appropriately watery electric guitar, harmonica, and Juju's wispy wordless singing float above a murky bass line and a drum machine. It sounds nice, like a lounge tribute to Ennio Morricone, but vanishes from the listener's consciousness moments after the last note fades. That's my main difficulty with this album; the songs are pleasant to hear, but they are good only as background music. That's not a terrible thing - background music has its place - but Mosquitos would often deliver actual songs that I wanted to listen to again. I saw Mosquitos perform a few years ago (opening for Air), and they were a lot more lively than the songs on the Undersea Poem CD."