Owl City: Ocean Eyes

Future pop has fast become a term used for acts that entwine pop melodies and characteristics with experimental, electronic beats; often including either a synth or a keyboard and usually throwing in a hint of trance/house danceability for good measure.

La Roux walks the line pretty straightly, as does Frankmusik and surprisingly, so too does the once promising, now disappointing Owl City. 

Sure he sounds like Ben Gibbard (scarily so at certain points) and at times, even the rhythm could be compared to some of The Postal Service's lighter work but nothing, and we mean absolutely nothing, is as intelligently made on here as anything from TPS's lone record. Instead, we're expected to digest a boring, almost embarrassingly simple attempt that shows an artist trying to fit into an ever changing musical world. 

Whether it's the approachable-punk of Gallows that the public particularly fancy one week or the screaming-dance nightmare that is Enter Shikari, it's plain to see that the over the last five years or so, popular music has enveloped and absorbed bits and pieces of the growing alternative scene in order to keep things 'fresh'. What Owl City has decided to undertake is an attempt to fit in with the fluoreso-coloured new comers and try to offer a less offensive take on it. He succeeds in that sense but it's still an unattractively bumpy journey through mostly cheesy, over-produced territory and falls miles below our previous expectations.

From the L.P's opening moment on Cave In, we felt both confused and frustrated at what we were assuming to be a genuinely entertaining venture into decent electronic music. Immediately, a cliché melody melts into nothing but over-cluttered, false ambient synths and heavily edited vocals. It's still one of the lesser causes of annoyance to be found on this muddled, frustrating full-length which doesn't bode well for the following material.

From Umbrella Beaches ridiculously over-used bass thump to Dental Care's stupidly poppy structure and lyrics, the record just seems to get worse and worse. Fireflies revels in its utterly forgettable, cheesier-than-cheese glow while The Tidal Wave pushes almost every nerve we own. It's a mess, an absolute, undeniable mess that tries way too hard and sounds no better for it.

Ocean Eyes would've been so much better off if he seemed less desperate to impress and more willing to relax. Had he let his musician side do the talking instead of listening to what he's been told will appeal, we feel it would've aided his début to no end. Every song seems fit to burst with convoluted characteristics, all aiming for the broadest demographic and refusing to try something experimental, even once.

If this is the future of pop, we'll grab our coats.