The Knife - Deep Cuts

As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to review this CD. You may have heard of this band, since their opening track on this album ("Heartbeats") was covered to great effect by Jose Gonzalez and is currently making the rounds. The Knife is a Swedish group that - on this album - seem to be focused around a very 80's style of synthpop. Their tracks are full of heavy synth bass and stereotypical pop waveforms. They even throw in some steel drum too. Vocals are interesting - there's no way to get around the fact that yes, they are from Sweden, but it's complimentary and not really distracting.

Deep Cuts is 17 tracks long. It's sort-of hit and miss. The opening track is good, and the one after ("Girl's Night Out") is as well. After that, it's a bit of a tossup. Some of the tracks - "You Make Me Like Charity" and "The Cop" notably - are weird. The album almost feels padded out. However, that said, there are enough good tracks on it that it's worth just anteing up the $10 for a copy from iTunes. Definitely a preview before you buy album though.