Casiotone For The Painfully Alone Etiquette

It's difficult to know whether Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is the absolute best or absolute worst band name you've ever heard. I guess it's a little more interesting than just plain old Owen Ashworth from Oakland though, and in many ways pretty fitting: electro-emo anyone? Anyone?

This is not emo in the mould that requires NHS glasses and a stripy t-shirt before entry, and it's not strictly electro in the synth overload Euro-pop sense; true, Ashworth made his name recording entire albums on an overworked battery-powered keyboard but this is him in expansive, embracing mood. The Casio's here alright but it's now complemented with pedal steels, flutes and guest appearances from the likes of Dear Nora's Katy Davidson and The Dead Science's Sam Mickens. And what do you know, but it's ace.

The spectre of the disillusioned teenager hangs over anyone wanting to make emotional music these days. You either go down the bedwetting route like Keane, or like Snow Patrol; or you go down the anguished, yelping romance of maybe Coheed & Cambria, or anything on the Deep Elm label. What Ashworth has done is create songs that are wistful and melancholy but not in an insular, self-absorbed way - they're insightful character studies, they're thematically coherent, they fit close round you like you're involved in their stories. Take lead single Young Shields, maybe - I remember scoffing at a description of handclaps on the last Radiohead album as 'sardonic', but these are the kind you find on the percussion settings of your school music lesson keyboard, and they're still a whole lot more emotive than Yorke and co manage. Not only that, but the gently undulating wall of sound creates a tense, nervous atmosphere - really, claustrophobic is the only word to describe it.

From there, I Love Creedence is difficult to make out: a paean to John Fogerty, or a simple song of love and loss? Cold White Christmas conjures up the noise-smothering feel of a Minnesota snowfall, and Don't They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night? is delivered in the slur of a man who's sickened himself with worry and liquor waiting for the call that never came. These are really evocative songs, and set the record aside from being just some slightly quirky pop songs, into affective and beautiful pop songs.