Rating:

World Leader Pretend’s lead vocalist, Keith Ferguson, sounds like a cross between Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) and James Walsh (Starsailor), but their music shares little with Stipe’s band (despite naming themselves after an R.E.M. song) and a great deal with Walsh’s. World Leader Pretend, despite hailing from New Orleans, fall squarely in the Britpop camp, with grandiose production, soaring vocals, and pompous pop leanings. Luckily for you and me, they do it well. There’s nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary on Punches, but the tunes are solid enough and the musicianship is nothing less than satisfactory. The production is a little polished for my taste, but I understand that it comes both with the major label and Britpop territory. I’d make some joke about “pulling punches” here, but I can’t think of a good one.

Buy album

– Kevin

This 4-beetsreview was posted on July 30th, 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.