The Beat Surrender

I reviewed a Temposhark EP over two and a bit years ago, it featured tracks that although remixes at the time are now featured here in their original state and I have to say without the quality remixes the tracks don’t have the same sparkle about them that they did back then.

Tracks do of course age and that is never more true than when you are dealing with electronic music, which Temposhark very definitely are. That isn’t to say that The Invisible Line doesn’t have it’s moments because it does, it just feels like a wasted opportunity to me.

Joy is still a decent electro-pop song, It’s Better To Have Loved is still a decent icy ballad and Not That Big really does benefit from Imogen Heap’s presence on the song as she delivers a very soulful performance. The best two tracks though for me are the electronica of Invisible Ink (which wins the contest hands down) and Winter’s Coming, which again is really nice piano and a more basic track.

Thats the keyword for me “basic”, when you strip back the elements then you get the best work from these boys and it’s for that reason that I wouldn’t write them off. Unfortunately all too often on their debut they’ve tried to put too much into it.

Don’t Mess With Me is a perfect example of that, they’ve really aimed for the stars with this one, the strings etc all get close to this sounding like a James Bond Theme song (well there is a new one out this year!), but rather than just leaving it at that or using the backing for different lyrics, they’ve then tried to combine it with lyrics that I presume are supposed to issue a warning or be threatening but just come across a little camp and misguided.

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