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Album Reviews
Album review: H Bird – Operation Fascination (H Bird Records)
By Marc Samuels | Published on Thursday 20 January 2011
H Bird are a mostly London-based trio with all the right influences (girl groups, electro-pop, cocktails, broken hearts). ‘Operation Fascination’, their debut album, is awash with pretty vignettes of doomed romance… think letters and photographs you can’t look at any more, but won’t throw away, or that last day of summer and first day of autumn.
With the pristine musical arrangements and cooed vocals from Kate Dornan, Saint Etienne are an obvious reference point (and not just because that group’s producer Ian Catt is on hand here) but there are surprises here too, with folky interludes appearing amid the Little Boots-with-a-broken-heart-disco and Club 8-style melancholy.
At its best, it’s very good indeed – witness the delightful Spector-ish Northern Soul of ‘1000 Lights’, or the perky synth-pop of ‘Violet’, which hides an achingly wistful chorus, effortlessly ticking that happy-sad perfect pop box that the likes of Dusty and the Pet Shop Boys have understood all too well.
More, please. MS
Physical release: 10 Jan
