Pictured: Tender Forever; Electronic rockers, conspicuous vandals.
Let me just say this, I’m going to reference the Postal Service in this review. Am I OK with this? No. Do I think it is lazy journalism? Yes. Can I explain? Thank you. Tender Forever started as a project between Melanie Valera in Bordeaux, France and some dude in San Francisco. They sent each other tracks through the majesty of the internet and *winces* the mail. Now the band has four people in it, plays real music live, and generally has little to nothing to do with the Postal Service, the United States, Ben Gibbard, or whatever.
They do play sort of electro-pop with sort of indie rock vocals and sort of fake drums. But wait guys! Wait! They have real drums too! They use amp static! They rock out sometimes! They don’t write about kissing tenderly and blah blah blah. In the end, Wider is a great album with a lot of depth to it. There are moments of quiet intimacy, like the beginning of, “I’m so Tired.” There are moments of restrained jubilation, all quiet guitars and melodica and bassy fake drums (”No One Will Tell No One For Sure”).
Anyway, to dismiss this album as, “a chick Postal Service” would be a disservice to the artist, and the album itself. Enjoy it for what it is, and do it thoroughly.
Comments 3
don’t you think they sound like BFF?
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 3:23 pm ¶Hi, I’m Melanie from the actual “band” Tender Forever.
Thanks a lot for writing about my music, it’s very nice and i appreciated reading you.
There is no one else in this band but me. It’s always been like this. The project with the “dude”, who was a girl, was called Garrison Rocks. But on the new Tender Forever album called WIDER, I recorded everything mostly by myself as written in the credits. But maybe you didn’t get to read them cause you never had the actual real cd, did you?
Thanks again and keep your chin up.
Posted 14 Nov 2007 at 6:21 pm ¶Peace Out,
Melanie
Tender Forever is lovely, great new album Melanie!
Posted 21 Dec 2007 at 1:38 pm ¶Post a Comment