Singles

Aviv Geffen - Its Alright

Nick Lewis 08/10/2009

Rating: 1/5

Aviv Geffen is a huge star in his native Israel and it's easy to see why from the cover: standing there all dark, brooding, bare torsoed and unflinching in the face of some kind of unidentifiable digital goo: positively swoon-worthy.

The moody stance and digital goo are misleading though. This is not the exercise in nihilistic electro you might have been expecting. Instead, it's a song attempting to sound lush, uplifting and soothing but ends up sickly sweet and shallow. The lyrics in particular are resoundingly hollow in that peculiarly Eurovision way of saying nice things with limited English: "Don't be afraid / it's gonna' be a beautiful day / try to dance to the rhythms of the dreams in your head / she may show up later on today / someone's watching you and hears you pray". Quite.

Geffen is hoping to replicate his Israeli success globally with his first English language album and has enlisted some top line producers, including TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek. On the strength of this song, I doubt he'll make it. It's dull, platitudinal and throwaway, and perhaps Geffen knows it: there's only so many times you can say "it's gonna' be alright" before someone gets suspicious.


Release date: 05.10.09