THE LADYBUG TRANSISTOR – CLUTCHING STEMS

This indie pop outfit from Brooklyn here offer a laid-back and gentle album. Vocalist Gary Olsen’s singing style is like an understated crooning, perhaps something similar to Steve Kilbey from The Church. This is The Ladybug Transistor’s seventh album since debuting with Marlborough Farms back in 1995. There have been frequent line-up substitutions over the years, but from album to album Olsen is always the common denominator. With the bed of a soft yet busy rhythmic guitar strumming and the drums and bass happy to compliment it, the band add trumpets, organ, piano strings and even an oboe at one point to decorate around the edges of this traditional “band” make up. This is the formula that Ladybug Transistor have employed successfully over the years, think The Killers “lite,”  with elements of CAKE’s lounge and jazz influences also getting a look-in (although definitely not the guitar-riff driven CAKE that you hear on the radio.) All in all Clutching Stems is a very well-written, recorded, arranged and produced album. Which is to be expected with such experience.

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