Noisettes' first album, What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?, was much better in theory than execution. For every rager about pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe's deserved place in the pantheon, and for how much Noisettes singer Shingai Shoniwa channeled the rowdiest chicks to ever rock a mic, the strong magnetic lure of assembly-line modern rock pulled the album toward the same bland end of the spectrum that claimed CSS last year. But for their second album, Wild Young Hearts, the gang seems to have landed on "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" on the career-path-Wheel of Fortune, and chose to compress that trio's time frame-- sneaking in the dance jam with the "Maps" and "Cheated Hearts". Sure, Wild's cracks are still caulked in with variations of 2007's theme. But if Noisettes' goal for the album was to be better and more adventurous than the debut while retaining the awesomeness of their meal ticket frontwoman, they nailed it.
At her best, Shoniwa establishes and then pushes through her fears, and her optimism and strong vocals combine to make opener "Sometimes" the band's best song yet. It's a simple folk piece with a sunny melody and optimistic disposition, but once it gets taken to church after the first chorus, it becomes clear that good things could happen if someone would introduce her to Mark Ronson. On their own, though, the band's retro-curiosity is more often than not matched with pop savvy, making for a solid record and a few downright good songs. "Every Now and Then", "Never Forget You", and "24 Hours" brush up effectively against 1960s soul, lacing in modern flourishes without overdoing them. The title track is a spry, jazzy singalong that, to its credit, stays on its tracks when the mall-punk guitars burst through the doors on the chorus. "Atticus" is a muted groover that lets Shoniwa get her Harper Lee on for a minute. For its part, latest single "Saturday Night"... wait, is that a whiff of electroclash?
No one's perfect, I guess, especially when they're trying to go from one-note to every note in the space of a single record. Sadly, though, that means that the dancier stuff, though I want to like it so much, is Wild's main casualty. Though everyone in the UK seems to love "Don't Upset the Rhythm", I can't get past the uninspiring use of citations. The title predicts its spiritual foundation, Rihanna's much hotter and not-yet-stale "Don't Stop the Music" (which itself isn't really reinventing the wheel). The title phrase shares space with the chant "go baby, go baby, go!", a geeky throwback to another pop-punk girl aiming to colonize the dancefloor. The song doesn't make me dance, or want to dance, as much as it makes me think of people dancing in television commercials. But hey, Noisettes are young, and especially if their third album represents as much of a leap over the second as Wild does from Wolf, they'll nail it soon enough. The onus is on Shoniwa, though: Once she overcomes the fundamental irony of possessing a strong visual and vocal presence without a coherent identity, there's no way we'll be able to stop her.
