Gentle Touch In Memory of Savannah by: Thomas Mendelovitis Fri:18-Apr-08 Label: Songs I Wish I Had Written Year: 2008 WB rating 65 out of 100

How appearances can be deceiving. From the cover-art to both the band-name and album title you’d expect In Memory of Savannah to be an inoffensive traipse through lush acoustic folk. On the contrary: from the introduction of electronic drums on first cut ‘Expectations’, the boundaries of Gentle Touch’s aesthetic vision are laid bare. The remaining seven songs continue where ‘Expectations’ begins – pulsing new wave rhythms, synth-poppy riffs, and chiming indie guitars which recall New Order and Depeche Mode at their most atmospheric. On In Memory of Savannah, Gentle Touch go about their 80s-lovin’ business with a quiet, if often prosaic, efficiency. Even if nothing is exceptionally intriguing or interesting, lovers of moody expansive electro will find the album not unrewarding.

The worst thing about Gentle Touch are the vocals, which channel the melancholy theatricality of Dave Gahan, but which without the heroin references and background context making the posturing even more ridiculous than it originally was. Case in point- the chorus of ‘The View’ runs as: “but I can tell, you are gorgeous/and I can tell, you make me smile/I just want to go up to you/I want to tell you, you are gorgeous”. If this wasn’t banal enough, the killer final refrain, carefully set up for maximum poetic damage goes “you make me smile”. Successfully communicating the delicate business of heartache and heartbreak can be hard enough in one’s first language, but being Swedish is no excuse; countrymen Peter Bjorn and John and Jens Lekman make a much better go of it. Thus, where ‘Once You Used To’ is a standout track from a musical perspective, starting out with a bouncy Italo synth line and booming snare; the affectation in the vocal when he asks the old chestnut “can we go back to be just friends?” is a sticking point. Bernard Sumner got away with these shenanigans with alternating boyish charm and powerful emotion learnt from Ian Curtis. On the other hand, Gentle Touch mostly get it wrong.

As a critic of indie music, it’s hard to totally hate Gentle Touch. They do their thing well, but it’s so damn stylish it’s almost as if they know critics will like it. The synths swell and avoid the horribly polished sheen of much retro music, the beats are nice and analogue and the riffs are catchy. Where they go wrong is in the assumption that intense soul-baring lyrics will succeed in making their music intense. Sadly, banal lyrics and intense music are not a good combination. ‘On the Verge of Tears’ has a lovely measured pace, full of hypnotic drums, background percussion, floating synths and ringing guitars. It would be perfect mood music on a Sofia Coppola film but to devote one’s full attention to it is tough going. You can’t get past clunkers such as “you look very nice, but that’s not enough, I want you to want me, on the floor”, which kill both the romance and the groove.