Redbrick

Where the Wild Things Are: Karen O & The Kids

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Written by Alex Spencer

8/10

SINGING chil­dren. It’s a dan­ger­ous one; for every Another Brick in the Wall, there’s a There’s No-one Quite Like Grandma. At times, espe­cially on the first lis­ten, the chil­dren do threaten to derail this album. But come back and you quickly become accus­tomed to it.

The trick the album pulls is to make sure there’s enough good­ness to keep you com­ing back.Since Yeah Yeah Yeahs released Maps, the pre­vi­ously sex-shrieking Karen O has shown an increas­ingly softer side. And so it is that this album is a very cud­dly, calm expe­ri­ence. Some­times. There is def­i­nitely vari­ety: Cap­size has the best Pix­ies gui­tar since the Pix­ies; Wor­ried Shoes is haunt­ingly beau­ti­ful enough to get away with the Linkin Park-esque ‘every step I take is another mistake.’

With more lis­ten­ings, the album starts to feel pleas­antly famil­iar. While this can work against it, espe­cially in later tracks, it’s dif­fi­cult to crit­i­cise a film sound­track for being back­ground music.

Espe­cially when it’s this won­der­fully pretty.

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This article was posted on November 8th, 2009 at 6:35 am.