Idiots!: Spring Is Here
By
Evan Sawdey 15 May 2007PopMatters Interviews Editor
It’s hard to be an Idiot. Spring Is Here is the second album from the Canadian electro-pop troubadours, and their first new release since (get this) 1999 when they released their debut, Evel Knievel. What’s happened since then? Mates of State and the Postal Service have come along, so it’s easy to pin the Idiots! as professional rehashes when, in fact, they got that emotion-through-keyboards thing down first. Yet, Mates and Postal do it better. Budget limitations aside, songs like “Lies and Secrets” and “The Visit” can be either too shouty or cheesy (respectively). The album can get a little same-sounding the further you dig in, but there are also some genuine pop gems lying about, including the spectacular “Tap on the Shoulder”, which shows vocalist Roey Shemesh holding back and creating a song that’s genuinely and profoundly affecting. There’s a lot of room to improve, but a lot of good stuff as well. Hopefully the wait for the next round won’t be another seven years.
Evan Sawdey began contributing to PopMatters in late 2005 after contributing for years to his college newspaper
The Knox Student. Evan became the Associate Interviews Editor for PopMatters in the summer of 2008, and then the full Interviews Editor a year after that. Since joining, Evan's work has been quoted/featured in a wide array of publications including SLUG Magazine, The Metro (U.K.), the Gulf Times, Soundvenue Magazine (Denmark), and multiple national newspapers. Evan has been a guest on WNYC's Soundcheck (an NPR affiliate), was the Executive Producer for the
Good With Words: A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album (available for free at
GoodWithWordsAlbum.com), and wrote the liner notes for the 2011 re-release of
Andre Cymone's hit 1985 album A.C. (Big Break Records) and the 2012 re-releases of
the JoBoxers' 1983 debut album Like Gangbusters,
'Til Tuesday's 1985 debut Voices Carry, and
Plastic Bertrand's 1978 album AN 1 (all Hot Shot Records). He is a current member of The Recording Academy and resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him
@SawdEye should you be so inclined.
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