Singles

Voxtrot - Trouble/Your Biggest Fan

Holly Cruise 27/02/2007

Rating: 2/5

Last year Voxtrot managed to release one of the best pieces of music committed to tape - 'Mothers, Sisters, Daughters And Wives' was almost perfect colliding jangling guitars with one of the most emotionally honest and lyrically intriguing vocal performances of the year. So why is 'Trouble' a bit disappointing? Is it because of its predecessor's brilliance or is it the song itself? It certainly has a lot of the elements of 'Mothers...', the smart vocals and surprisingly danceable structure of the song this time float around a nice piano riff rather than a guitar riff. But it feels more slight, less solid, less substantial.

Voxtrot have proven they can hit the heights but this seems to lack the ambition to go there once more. 'Your Biggest Fan', the double A-side, is the same. The laid back jauntiness is nice enough but there's no reason to get attached, no reason to get involved on anything more than a superficial level. It's quite likely I'd be better disposed to these tracks without the existence of 'Mothers...', there's a massive element of feeling that they could do better. But it's so hard to consider a band's work in isolation from its other work, and it's unreasonable to expect it to be considered thus. Voxtrot work better when suffering from a bit of angst.

If you've not heard 'Mothers...' then maybe you will like this a lot, especially if you're missing Teenage Fan Club. Otherwise it's OK, but it's going to leave you wondering which is the anomaly, this or 'Mothers...'.