Devotchka 100 Lovers

Chances are if you've heard of Devotchka, it's through their work on the soundtracks to Little Miss Sunshine or I Love You Phillip Morris. Ploughing a similar furrow to Beirut and A Hawk and a Hacksaw, the Denver-based band has been operating as a cult interest for more than a decade now.

Devotchka mix Eastern European and South American musical styles on unashamedly dramatic and romantic ballads, at its worst a bit like the entertainment put on at a dodgy Spanish restaurant, but at its best – when they wheel out the soaring string arrangements or the moments of virtuoso musicianship – it's elegant and uplifting. While 100 Lovers doesn't see any sort of radical reinvention from the band, there are tracks where they attempt to push their sound a bit further, such as tango references on The Man from San Sebastian, a bit of jaunty whistling on Exhaustible and, like the most recent Beirut album, throwing in more keyboards.

They may be incredibly talented musicians, but singer Nick Urata's vocals can be something of a challenge for listeners as they're mostly delivered in a bizarrely accented, drunken slur. His voice may suit the raucous theatricality of their live act (developed as a result of starting out as the backing band for burlesque celebrity Dita Von Teese), but it still has a habit of trampling over everything else in its path on their records (with occasional exceptions such as their cover of Siouxsie and The Banshees' The Last Beat of My Heart on the Curse Your Little Heart EP). And while the band continue to evolve their arrangements, sadly they haven't gotten around addressing the vocals yet. There are moments on the album where it fits well – the cartoonish mariachi sound of Bad Luck Heels is big enough to carry Urata’s melodramatic delivery and All the Sand in all the Sea, being a song about alcohol fuelled regret, is the perfect place for the drunken slur. However, elsewhere what's meant to be dramatic or romantic, generally comes across as creepy (100 Other Lovers) or ridiculous (Ruthless).

100 Lovers has a fair few highlights, but as a whole it's merely another example of Devotchka still not managing to successfully capture the exuberance of their live show on record.