Half Cousin Iodine by: Dean Van Nguyen Mon:01-Oct-07 Label: Gronland Year: 2007 WB rating 64 out of 100

Not much has changed for Half Cousin since their 2004 debut The Function Room. Even with main man Kevin McCormack relocating to London, a lot has stayed the same. He’s still making cheap, cheerful pop songs using any instrument he can lay his hands on.  The result is a collection of rough, but often exhilarating pop.

While Iodine comfortably falls into the bracket of “Alternative Music”, it’s influenced by an eclectic assortment of styles, keeping its listeners guessing throughout. Occasionally this conversion of arts can be thrilling. Opener ‘Big Chief (The B&B Frequenter)’is propelled using an accordion and hits like a stroll through the streets of Paris, played over a hip-hop beat. This is where Iodine really stands out; its unusual methods of percussion, which range from programmed rap beats to the simple background tapping of ‘Rat Pack Dad’. Highlight ‘The Absentee’ expands a ballad into a monstrous, earth crumbling song using deep and dirty electro basslines and heavy drums. It’s followed by some nimble Nick Drake-like acoustic fiddling on ‘Abide’, a real gem.

McCormack’s heavily accented voice plays guide to all the quirky elements in his music. Often close to incomprehensible McCormack’s vocals add fantasy to ‘Jim’s Crash Memory’, barely raising his voice louder than a whisper he weaves a dreamlike feel, the song propelled by some simple piano chords.

However, making this kind of “no budget” music means when the group get it wrong the results can be borderline unlistenable. Songs like ‘Police Touch’ and ‘Your Name’ fail to hold the interest in the same way as some of the albums more successful tracks do, partly caused by the mishmash of the instruments used and partly because of the lack of memorable melody. The short instrumental ‘Home Help’ revisits the sounds of an acoustic guitar, but feels like a throw away piece of score rather than a fully functioning song. But in an album so eclectic, it’s the individual tracks that seem the focus, and here Half Cousin have produced a handful that are truly inspired.