REVIEW: Smart Brown Handbag, Little Things are Everything
(Stonegarden)
- Reto Koradi
New trends may be coming and going, but Smart Brown Handbag are obviously firm believers that some of them were just too good to be forgotten. With their 5th album, they keep up the fine art of intelligent guitar pop that peaked during the 80s. The fact that the voice of SBH's brain David Steinhart has a striking resemblance to Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera only reinforces the fond memories.
Little Things are Everything does not quite live up to the remarkable predecessor Lullabies for Infidels from 1997, but it still features 10 carefully crafted and catchy pop songs, with bittersweet lyrics mostly about unhappy and lost love. This might not be an essential or even ground-breaking album, but it certainly is thoroughly enjoyable, and you may find yourself humming some of the tunes long after you turned of your CD player.
Ordering information and some sound files can be found at http://www.stonegarden.com
