Friday, November 23, 2007

TV Eyes needs some cutting and splicing.

TV Eyes needs some cutting and splicing.

With such an amazing pedigree (Roger Manning? Brian Reitzell? Jason Falkner?! Holy crap!) it's no surprise that TV Eyes write electro neu-wave that is almost uniformly perfect when it comes to melody and arrangement. The group's talent can't be denied, but they do have a fairly obvious fatal flaw, and it's one that befalls most insanely gifted songwriters.

They don't know when to stop.

Almost every song on TV Eyes is 3 to 4 minutes too long! What should have been a set of blissful pop nuggets turns into a collection of ingratiating hooks that slowly turn grating. Bummer, huh?

Here's an example:

MP3: TV Eyes "She's A Study"

If it was 2 minutes shorter, it'd be perfection. Also at 3:14, I can't help but feel like that little lick is right out of "In A Big Country." Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty great stuff! But it could've been better if someone had just said, "Um, guys, maybe we shouldn't repeat that chorus that extra time, and let's trim down the bridge and just tighten things up, huh?"

Photo by J.J. Blair

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