I’ve never seen an episode of ‘New Girl’ or watched ‘(500)
Days of Summer’ (no kidding), nor have I ever been interested in Zooey Deschanel
and her indie project, She & Him. I didn’t even know she could sing, for goodness
sake! Turns out, however, she can, and her latest collaboration with M. Ward has resulted in a pretty damn good summer record.
Volume 3, She & Him’s fourth studio album, is all about
love and breakups and, weirdly enough, London, and even though it has the
potential to be incredibly banal, it actually isn’t. Ok, maybe it is, but in a
good way (if that makes any sense). The
melodies are fun and very Beach Boys-ish; lyrically, though, Deschanel manages
to bring an element of complexity to an otherwise straight-forward record. (“I
sacrifice myself at the altar of someone else's love for me. No, that doesn't
comfort me.”)
Volume 3 opens strongly with ‘I’ve Got Your Number, Son’ but
starts feeling repetitive towards the end whilst ‘Together’ sounds like it could
belong to a different album. Zooey and M. Ward have also included three covers
(Blondie's 'Sunday Girl' is totally unnecessary), and with 14 tracks, Volume 3 seems a bit too long. Overall,
though, She & Him have created the perfect rom-com soundtrack which is actually
not a bad thing. And I will definitely be listening to it all summer long.
