Friday, 8 Dec 2006
Who is Jim Noir? That’s exactly what I was thinking when I decided to give his album Tower of Love (Barsuk Records) a try last night on my drive downtown. What I heard right away on the first track, “My Patch” gave me impressions of a sweet combination of the Beach Boys and Andrew Bird. While the Andrew Bird comparisons don’t hold up much past that first track my friends and I kept coming back to the comparison and similarities to some of our favorite early Beach Boy tunes.
The album does manage to go beyond the comparisons above and is, at least in my opinion, a great night driving record. Combining gentle electronic touches and lush vocal harmonies I’m wishing I would have checked this disc out a lot sooner. Lyrically, I found myself questioning lyrics like, “If you don’t give my football back, I’m gonna get my dad on you,” only to later have the song permanently cemented in my head.