Mirror

Mirror

Record Review by Alex Pudlin

Throughout the course of Mirror’s self-titled debut album, I couldn’t help but think that Pulp does this sort of moody, urban disenchantment much better on This is Hardcore. That’s not to say Mirror is bad, per se, but rather that it has a very specific focus that is best suited for certain contexts.  On the plus side, it’s an album full of atmosphere. Songwriter Thomas Anselmi and music industry veteran producer Vincent Jones employ a wide range of vocalists to add distinct brands of romantic isolation to their cold synthesizer storms.  It’s effective, but also one-dimensional.

If you’re planning on having a one-night stand tonight, this could be the perfect album to play. It’s sexy in a very impersonal sort of way, yet it’s not as obvious as say Barry White. The best word to describe the entire album is “ennui.” Jones’ production is not concerned with nuance. He wants you to the feel the breeze as you open that window at 4:00AM to have a smoke and not to forget its bite. The ensemble of singers (including Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan) all do their job quite nicely. They add personality to Anselmi’s songs without upstaging Jones’ texture.

For better or worse there are a few standouts. On the positive side, “World of Darkness” is a universally well-crafted song that with some arrangement adjustments could easily be an adult-contemporary smash, a modern R&B ballad or even a country torch song. “Fat Girl” however, turns the self-loathing implied by many of the songs on Mirror into a cruel taunt. The singer’s menacing tone muddles the point of the song. Is this a sympathetic helping hand to obese girls or merely a mean-spirited mockery of the archetypal awkward teen? It’s hard to say with lyrics like “Fat girl stuffing her face, cleaning her lips of the crumbs from the cake she adores” alongside a chorus of “You don’t know what it is to be loved,” but such ambiguity does not make it easy to give Anselmi the benefit of the doubt.

Mirror is not a failure of an album. In some ways it’s actually a crowning success because it achieves what it sets out to do. If you’re disillusioned with city life, it’s a great album for you. But if you require versatility or layers to your music, you should probably search elsewhere.