These United States - A Picture Of The Three Of Us In The Garden Of Eden

Release Date: 30th June 2008
Label: United Interests

It's not often that folk seems to cross as many boundaries as These United States do on their debut ]'A Picture Of The Three Of Us At The Garden Of Eden', it's quite wonderful and thought provoking at the same time. But it's also easy to think that if the band are will to cross over to other genres that aren't very indicative of folk, are they ashamed of being pigeon-holed into such a category? Probably not.

There are many influences within the album from Garage Rock, Twee, Prog and Post Rock to name but a few. What it does give is an overwhelming sense that these guys know exactly what they're doing, they're going to take their listener on a rollercoaster ride where the twists and turns are totally unexpected.

The introduction, 'Preface: Painless', is undoubtedly beautiful and a bit misleading for the rest of the album. This ditty seems to scream "We are serious music people. Look how serious we can be." but the next track gushes in with it's plinky plonky folk and totally dissuades you from any preconceptions previously made. 'The Business' is very comparable Panic At The Disco's Pas De Cheval in that it's very cowboy, middle America, "YEEHAA!" sort of things. Straight after that it veers into 1950's motown with 'Jenni Anne', a song that's so very much like Dusty Springfield, albeit with a more masculine edge to it, needless to say, these genre turns can make for a weird experience.

'So High So Low So Wide So Long' has a bass line that is almost hypnotic, it’s understatedness is blatantly the best quality of the song. It lies there as a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be discovered and buffed up, hopefully this diamond will have a few friends there waiting for These United States' sophomore effort.

What we've got here is a band that likes to whore around different genres like certain peroxide LA A-Listers do around Greek shipping heirs. That's not to say that they don't do it well, it's just that they seem to be more of a jack of all trades but a master of none. All of the songs are pleasant but they don’t really seem to go anywhere, there’s no capitalisation on the inspiration. It would have been much more preferable if they’d have taken their talent and crafted an album with fewer genre crossovers and focussed on those rather than skipping around and falling flat on their faces.

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