Joy Zipper American Whip

Ah, couples in bands. From the 70s AOR nightmare of Wings to the more credible strains of Sonic Youth, the conceit of an outfit featuring at least two people shagging each other has held the appeal of many a hack.

Mercifully, perhaps, Joy Zipper have more in common with the latter of the bands mentioned above, more so then their shared New York roots. Vinny Cafiso and Tabitha Tindale may well have passed under this particular pop periscope since their 2000 debut, but American Whip more than makes up for lost time. This is no small part to the extracted single Baby You Should Know, a wonderfully murky slice of shoegazing revivalism which should fit quite nicely into my top five singles of 2004 come December time. Cafiso and Tindale's voices entwine with a lazy ease that betrays their obvious familiarity with the other. It's a superb tribute to a sound that has been, sadly, retrospectively derided by many.

However, the album isn't based around droning guitars and breathy vocals, which is something of a relief for those with a taste for variety who also aren't keen on seeing old Slowdive albums being pillaged for all their worth. Christmas Song saunters with a summer's grove, though lines such as 'You know I'm always watching' has a certain sinister air to upset the apple cart just a little amongst 'I love you more then a thousand Christmases'.

At times, it's hard to pinpoint quite what direction Joy Zipper are coming from - 33x's slide guitar alongside Tindale's almost-talking vocals brings to mind the many fine moments that Mazzy Star provided with us, while the opening bars to Out Of The Sun bring the best moments of 60s pop into the 21st century. The epic is perhaps the six minute (brilliantly titled) In The Never Ending Search For A Suitable Enemy, possibly the point where the duo's vocals are most perfectly matched, providing the soundtrack for late Spring evenings drinking away future worries.

American Whip is by no means perfect, the odd track is often screaming for an injection of life into it while the short asides peppered across the album act as more irritants then distractions, the main suspect being Drugs, whose 24 seconds only serves to show that the eponymous subject remains as dull as ever even when encapsulated in a few lines. But, but, but... minor complaints aside, while this album may well be overlooked by many, it will be cherished by those who afford it the further investigation it so clearly deserves.