Caught in the Carousel

Swing Out Sister

Beautiful Mess
Avex Trax Japan

Swing Out Sister has three things going against them: (1) their name (2) they are responsible for that regrettable 1980s song "Breakout" (3) they are big in Japan. However, the duo also has one thing going for it that trumps all of those: melody. Though fans of Swing Out Sister often refer to the band's sound as being classic and signatory, that is not accurate. The early work has a stiff '80s feel with a heavy dosage of cheese. The drums are chunky and the keyboards sound very Toys 'R Us. Rumor has it that somewhere along the way, Corinne Drewery and Andy Connell disappeared into Japan to study Bacharach and jazz. I don't know if this is true, what I do know is that around 1997 they replaced The Pet Shop Boys as the most melodic supplicants to that dirty little notion: Pop Music. What followed was a string of jazzy and winsome confections: Shapes and Patterns (1997) Somewhere Deep in the Night (2001) Where Our Love Grows (2004) and, in 1999 their masterpiece, Filth and Dreams, which is quite simply the most beautiful, daring, melodic album of that decade. Trust me.

Beautiful Mess, their ninth studio album, is a work that mines the consistently masterful sound of their second life. Fans of the band know from the live shows, that the smartest decision Swing Out Sister ever undertook was to employ top notch jazz musicians to give a richness to the sound. Gone is the tinny sound that is the Waterloo of so much '80s pop. The music now is full of substance and, as has also been true of their later works, filled with an unexpected lyrical gravitas, so that when the melodies send you into the atmosphere, you can actually recline, fully supported, on the clouds up there.

The album's second track, "Time Tracks You Down," is pure Bacharach. It's all there, the reticent hope of the lyric, the promise offered by a slight chime of a triangle, and the innocence hinted at by the Motownesque backing vocals. Then there is the following track, "Butterfly" that is as sinuous as Maxwell and Sade at their best. One of the album's best tracks follows, "My State of Mind." The finger-snapping may be electronic, but other than that, the song is infectious, and when Drewery sings in a low, almost gruff tone, "In my state of mind/It doesn't matter if it's night or day" one feels the need to make sure the curtains are drawn.

The rest of the album coasts along as if it were already summer and the listener has stumbled upon a beachside carnival that has no closing time. But as the album itself comes to a close, that bit of nirvana every Swing Out Sister album promises comes in the song "Out There": "And all the world can disappear around us/ We'll find our dreams out there/Invisible as night/until tomorrow finds us." The song soars above a low-timbered whispering "come on," some Martin Denny chatter, and the Bacharach melody has crossed the pond and been handed over to Francis Lai, and you have succumbed to what is, so far, the best album of the year.

--Thomas Cooney