"Friday Night Frolic" - Ring Your Bell

(And with the holidays in full swing, what better time to do it?)

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At first glance, it seems a dissolution in the works: James Mercer, from the oh so happy, Grammy Award winning Shins, and the somber Brian Burton, a/k/a Danger Mouse (and half of the also Grammy Award winning Gnarls Barkley). Two opposites they are. But in fact, it's a playful and promising partnership—the chiming harmony of Broken Bells.

The union's self-titled first release is permeated with textured and moody reverberation, sepia-steeped solicitude, beautifully conveyed  here:






And here, in a schizophrenic stew of Neil Young-like falsetto (whose shrill voice my mother never quite appreciated) and pop science:





I hope those Broken Bells keep ringing for a long time.