LAURA PEEK AND THE WINNING HEARTS
From the Photograph
Just Friends
· From the Photograph has a lot going for it and one obvious flaw – the vocals.
Laura Peek and the Winning Hearts’s first full-length should be great. From the Photographs has a lot going for it. It has a fashionable sort of spurious simplicity that’s sure to make it popular with the hipster crowd. It has catchy little piano hooks and literate, interesting lyrics. It has a handful of truly magnificent tracks and, by God, does it have charm in abundance. What it lacks – that is to say, what holds it back – is a vocalist with the range its faux-naif/colloquial style requires.
Peek’s voice – no matter how much it makes you just want to give her a hug – is never able to hit the high octaves that some of the songs are built around. This might have been an attempt to have the vocals come off as nonchalant to complement the conversational lyrics, but she ends up sounding disinterested instead. Fortunately, this flaw is isolated to a few tracks. There’s plenty of room for songs in Peek’s vocal range.
From the Photographs should be great. It really, really should be. Sadly, though, its cuteness and charm end up outweighing its consistency, and what we’re left with is simply pretty good.
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