Sometimes it can be a worrying thing if a band you admire hits their creative peak too soon. This is perhaps the case for French/Finnish duo The Do who failed to live up to the entertaining and majestic high standard of their second LP Both Ways Open Jaws. This was always going to be a difficult challenge considering that the previous record should have been shortlisted for the best release of 2011. It perfected the math-pop compostions, unpredictable twists and turns and wanderlust instrumentation of their EBBA nominated debut A Mouthful, showed improvement in Olivia Merilahti's vocal quality and shaped their compositions into something more memorable with individual and other-worldly mystical personalities.

 

Their avant garde art rock music works when it's wholesome and when the myriad of creative spices blend together. Their new album "Shape Shook Shaken" havs diluted two of the magical spices that define the characteristics of the band: their ambigious lyrics and their whismical and impulsive inclination towards African instruments, comparable to Wildbirds and Peacedrums.

 

Whilst we are usually accustomed to Merilahti singing emotionally about obscure and surreal fantasy with romantic undertones such as on A Mouthful's Song For Lovers: "Now you can see how dragonflies sting their hearts with dark", the lyrics on the new release are sculptured with less creative thought and without metaphorical representation including on Opposite Ways: "What if I was wrong to take for granted, what was free?" Even if the lyrical content was just as creative as on the previous two releases, the production blankets over lyrical intelligibility, an example is on A Mess Like This.

 

The other unwelcomed absence is the lack of tribal atmosphere, exotic percussion and compatriot Emilie Simon philosophy of DIY instrumentation, with the band's core composer Dan Levy opting to enhance the synth pop/electro pop nature which was found only in patches on previous albums. Although it isn't dull and it can be a pleasantly listenable on the Twilight-zoned A Mess Like This, the 8-bit arcadia of Lick My Wounds and the Giorgio Moroder sparkled Trustful Hands, it's dissapointingly doesn't contain the same level of charm that made them addictive in the first place.

 

All this wouldn't matter if the album and the band's image could rely on Olivia Merliahti's voice but unfortunately it's tonal structure can be an acquired taste and it's interchangable through her career. On A Mouthful it has the fragile twang of PJ Harvey and the non-chalance semi-talking of Soko, whilst on Both Ways Open Jaws, it has the strength and stress of Björk and the attitude of Karen O. Yet intriguingly on their latest album Merliahti's vocals have transformed into the theatrics of Marina Diamandis. This inconsistency can be confusing for the a fan who had followed their evolution from A to C.

 

It's a miscalculated study in how on many occasional the sum of all parts has far greater worth than it's individual merits.

 

Best Tracks: Trustful Hands and A Mess Like This