The first time I listened to the “Sons and Lovers” title track, I was under the impression I was about to be underwhelmed by another “electro-dream” band. The kind where the songs are slow and lack something to tap your foot/nod your head too (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
I was completely wrong.
About thirty seconds into “Sons and Lovers” I was met with a wonderful, upbeat sound, not unlike Passion Pit or M83. The hook was catchy, the mixing excellent, and most of all, an absolute pleasure to listen to.
BLDP has an obvious knack for providing listeners with a robust sound. It was apparent from the weaving synths on “Older Together” and the full sounding instrumentation of “Leave It All.” Their strongest suit by far was their ability to instill songs with simple and, very often, catchy melodies — definitely not something you see in your typical debut LP. For me, I see that as their biggest strength. In particular, I was whistling the hook of “We Are Golden” for days.
However, where BLDP excelled in hooks and instrumentation, I felt the vocals and choice in style were somewhat disappointing. For the most part, the songs are clean and precise (that’s what you expect with much of indie-electro), but the vocals and changing ranges I felt didn’t quite keep up with the level of the rest of the music. At points, it seemed liked they even clashed in songs such as “Lift Away.” The measured, exact instrumentation just didn’t jive well with the barely intelligible and almost straining vocals. As for style, several songs felt caught in between the “dreamy” and “driven” styles of music. Songs wandered but a tad too much forward direction, or moved with too little direction (depending on how you looked at it).
For the most part, it was a very solid album. Although BLDP seems to have a shifting identity when it comes to a dreamy sound or a more conventional “driven” sound, they definitely have a very solid foundation to build from. I definitely look forward to more from these guys in the future.