Shy Child : Disconnected
Released: 8th March 2010
Label: Wall of Sound
Shy Child's first offering off their forthcoming second album, Liquid Love, is certainly a puzzler. 'Disconnected' starts in unnerving fashion with some frankly, pretty weird xylophone noises that sound bizarrely festive, thankfully that familiar gated synth pulse still lurks just below.
The first time you listen to Disconnected, it leaves you feeling a bit cold. It certainly isn't in the same league as 'Summer' or 'Drop the phone'. But, if you give it a chance, though I'm not sure you should really have to, you find yourself warming to it.
It would seem that Shy Child have abandoned the stripped down simplicity that made their first album so appealing, replacing it with an altogether more familiar multi-layered approach. Make no mistake this is a busy song -- there are more electro trills and reverse cymbal crashes than you can shake a Roland sample pad at.
It's a odd propensity towards over-production that they've shown before, and saw them abandon the original (and incredible) version of 'Summer' for a rerecording so cringingly over-thought that it just sounded like it had been recorded by people with no souls and a mixing desk the size of Latvia.
Whether it hints at a band not entirely comfortable or confident with their musicianship isn't clear. Though coupled with live performances than can range from the sublime to the atrocious it makes you wonder.
Shy Child have always straddled an uncomfortable divide somewhere between Friendly Fires, Late of the Pier, Vitalic and Booka Shade -- whether or not this album is designed to land them more squarely in the latter's market we'll have to wait and see. I for one, sincerely hope not.
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