Review: Broken Bells – Broken Bells

In 2007, if you’d told me that James Mercer of The Shins and Danger Mouse were teaming up for a collaborative project, I probably would have flipped out. The Shins were riding high after three great records, and Danger Mouse had been the man behind The Grey Album, Gnarls Barkley, and producer of Gorillaz’s hit, “Feel Good Inc.” The combination would have been just too good. Now in 2010, it’s still an exciting pairing, but not nearly as much as when the two were on top. Since touring for the last Shins record, Wincing the Night Away, in 2007, Mercer has largely been absent from the music scene, appearing in a mumblecore film. Danger Mouse continued to work, producing Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad, The Queen, releasing another Gnarls Barkley album, and collaborating with the late Mark Linkous on the Dark Night of the Soul project, which featured a cameo from Mercer. The two teamed up to do album on their own, and that’s the birth of Broken Bells.

Before hearing the self titled release, I had high hopes for a combination of two masters of pop. I was hoping for a hybrid of The Shin’s bright “So Says I” and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” a song that would surely be the catchiest ever released. But yet, Broken Bells lead-off single, “The High Road” was fairly bland. It’s got catchy moments, but it sounds like a retread of songs I’d heard before. It didn’t stand out in the work the two had already done, and was a disappointment. But that didn’t stop me from getting the full record, giving these two great musicians a chance. While I was glad to know the record as a whole was better than “The High Road,” I was still disappointed with it overall.

First, let’s talk about the good things. There are definitely catchy hooks throughout the record. “Vaporize” is about as good as it gets, a song where the duo shows what they’re most capable of. The song bounces and it the most fun you’ll have listening to it. Other highlights include “Trap Doors” and “October,” which follow in the same vein and demonstrate just what exactly Broken Bells set out to do. But the problem is, there’s seven other songs on the record that aren’t as good as those three. That’s when Broken Bells starts to get off track.

Broken Bells has two big flaws to it. First of all, it rarely goes over mid-tempo. For every catchy hook there is, the songs never pick up steam and Mercer’s voice is stuck in its lower range, never reaching the falsetto so frequently used in The Shins’ bounciest songs. Secondly, every song sounds about the same. Each song is steady drumming with sad, slow lyrics coming from Mercer. The keyboard parts added to Mercer’s acoustic guitars all beep and boop, but they don’t add anything more than that. There’s nothing exciting about any of the songs, and after a while, you almost feel like you’ve been listening to the same thing over and over again. It’s shocking to me that two talented musicians, masters of the pop song, could make a record this bland.

I know it sounds like I hated the record, but not totally. It was more a matter of disappointment than it was dislike. Broken Bells is enjoyable to listen to, but not in the same way as Chutes Too Narrow or St. Elsewhere. In a lot of ways, it sounds like an album of mid-tempo Shins’ songs produced by Danger Mouse, which sounds obvious, but wouldn’t you like more variety? Why wouldn’t you want to hear a hybrid of “So Says I” and “Crazy?” Unfortunately, you won’t hear that (yet) from Broken Bells.

Michael’s Score: 55
TUIW Grade: C