A Band of Bees - Sunshine Hit Me
(Astralwerks)
Who knew the British Isles were so goddam tropical? Hailing from the Isle of Wight in southern England, A Band of Bees (previously named The Bees) are a hyper-melodic, hyper-eclectic retro-pop duo in the spirit of the Beta Band, Lemon Jelly, and Beck. However, for The Bees, the Tropicalia influence is so pronounced, you'd swear they really were from the Caribbean Isles, instead of the British ones.
The highlights of The Bees debut album are not in its more overt tropical moves, but rather when those Latin sounds—the horns, the rhythms, the joy—permeate into the band's more British Floyd-ian and Beta-ian folk trip-scapes. A perfect example is "Sunshine;" the keyboards ripple like tiny waves in a pond, while horns and voices call out appreciativee chants to the early-afternoon rays, creating a blissful rush of sound. Tempos are kept slow and graceful, even when the band tries more pop song structures, like album opening "Punchbag" and album closing "Sky Holds the Sun." "Punchbag" sounds as if it's right off of Hot Shots II, following a slow tempo and using the darkest descending chord sequences, but still managing to turn it all into a memorable pop song. "Sky Holds the Sun" blends in more of a Bacharach influence, crafting a sappy love song out of keyboard and marimba, intersecting with a trumpet melody that gives the song a memorable melody.
When The Bees do tropical in a more straightforward manner, the results are expertly crafted but ultimately flat. The strutting reggae of "No Trophy" and the blue-eyed soul of "Angryman" are pure style pieces; we get no sense of who The Bees are from these songs other than perhaps they want to be Jimmy Cliff or Antonio Jobim just as much as John and Paul wanted to be Chuck Berry. When the band do a straight cover, performing "A Minha Menina" by Os Mutantes, they recreate it perfectly, adding basically nothing, but still creating an enjoyable rendition, "Binnel Bay" is, at least, unimposing, with its light rhythmic clatter doing a better job of putting you on a beach in the South Seas than a pure reggae piece will ever do.
First listening to this album after 18 inches of snow fell on my front lawn, Sunshine Hit Me gives me the perfect soundtrack for the long thaw. It is brightly color and warmly toned, letting the sun come in and sooth you, just as the apt title implies.
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