Listen honey. It’s not you. Honestly its not, it’s me. It’s my entire fault and I’m the one in the wrong. You can keep the dog. I’m leaving and it’s all because I’m just too cynical. Too hardened by it all to be able to enjoy this lovely uncluttered bright-eyed wet nosed ‘Loma Vista’ record by those nice Californian boys and girls from Family Of The Year. No hang on. I take it all back. It is you after all. Anyone who can start off with an oh-so-Sade percussion beat, fill it to the brim with breezy doo wop guitars and then come up with the rhyme “you bring the ocean / I’ll bring the motion / dancing all night in slow motion” It’s so forced, I’d rather you just didn’t try.
“Bury me with my guitar…” is a pleasant sentiment, but Willie Nile has been here before with far more heart in his ‘House Of A Thousand Guitars’. Family Of The Year are sincere and schmaltzy beyond any reasonableness, a point proven like a slap in the face in ‘Hey Ma’. Over a minor piano chord they ask “hey ma what’s new at home, have you talked to Dad, does he know about the band?” and I can’t help feeling that this homesick whimpering lovely should listen instead to Clifford T. Ward or even Rumer addressing the same subject. Or failing that, just, er, nip home for the weekend?
It’s all lovely summery stuff if you happen to share your musical tastes with Terry Wogan. Bring on the Norwegian Black Metal. Bring on the Wombles. Anything else please. Oh go on then, prove me wrong. This will be huge, and shiny, and wonderful, the sound of the summer, and I’ll be sat over there, muttering grimly in the corner.
[Rating:2]
![Meursault - Something For the Weakened [SongByToad Records]](https://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SomethingFortheWeakened-150x150.jpeg "Meursault - Something For the Weakened [SongByToad Records] 31")
