Et Tu Bruce - Suburban Sunshine

The music of Et Tu Brucé is quite nicely summed up by their name: easy to Google, sounds quite clever, but that acute accent on the e is bloody annoying. That’s pretty much how you’ll feel about their debut album, ‘Suburban Sunshine’. When it’s nice, it’s nice, but there’s almost too much of a mellow tone, and the harmonious pop gets annoyingly grating. Even worse, for all of Et Tu Brucé’s attempts at sounding different, the result just sounds a little bit boring.

Opening with the energetic almost-rock of ‘Dress Me Up In Bruises’, the album quickly slides into a more chilled-out soundscape, one that is almost certain to be touted as ‘summer listening’. It’s a shame, because the opener is one of the highlights. Instead, in a poor choice of tracklisting, the song is followed up by ‘Memories Remain’, a strange, slightly sad slice of folk-pop that feels weirdly like the lovechild of The Shins and The Beatles.

Much of the album follows this kind of style. There is a reason why the more energetic songs of ‘Suburban Sunshine’ generally sound better; they go far better with the raw feel of the album on the whole, whereas the sugary sweet pop just sounds strange unpolished, especially with the vocals. For example, ‘Never Seen You Cry’ isn’t great, although it is kind of catchy, but the highlight of it is the simple harmonica solo that goes perfectly suits the folky sound.

‘Never Say Trevor Again’ feels like it would be great if it didn’t have the strange sense of an in-joke. Again, it’s catchy as anything, with the repetitive chorus of “Never, never say Trevor again” and its variants, but who the fuck is Trevor? Things draw to a close with the six-minute ‘It’s All Nothing’. It’s grittier than anything else on the album, and even seems to dabble in some psychedelic guitar riffs. Where was this on the rest of the album?

There will be more than a few people who enjoy ‘Suburban Sunshine’, but there’ll be even more who realise that listening to Et Tu Brucé’s influences is a far more pleasing experience.