Heartbeat Radio is the sixth proper album from Norwegian transplant Sondre Lerche, following 2007's soundtrack album for the Steve Carell sapfest Dan in Real Life. As much as that film deserves to be looped infinitely in In-Flight Movie Hell, it kind of made perfect sense to peg Lerche to handle the tunes, most of which happily remained congruent with his ever-wistful, singer-songwriter romanticism. True, this stuff can get downright schmaltzy at times, but there's such a genuineness in his music that it's hardly worth aggressively faulting the guy for it-- cynics: take heed. Nevertheless, he has the good sense to pay close attention to arrangements and general songcraft on Heartbeat Radio, reinforcing his pleasant earnestness sufficiently enough that the heartsick sunniness sticks with you all afternoon, even when the actual songs themselves don't always do the same.
What saves most of Heartbeat Radio from becoming too aware of itself is Lerche's deft ear for composition that, when he sticks to the script, often benefits him greatly. Grandiose opener "Good Luck" wouldn't be much more than half-assed Coldplay bombast, but the wild strings egg on a fortuitous build that sets an exciting tone for the rest of the album. Title track "Heartbeat Radio" follows, confirming Lerche's fondness for Belle and Sebastian-- unfortunately, the energy isn't channeled properly, leaving the track sounding like a spazzy Dear Catastrophe Waitress outtake. But cuts like the following "I Cannot Let You Go" are so crisp and immediately tuneful it's easy to ignore the quirkier missteps. Shakers, bright acoustic guitars, and great little piano accents play so simply and delightfully on "Let You Go", you wonder why the guy even bothered to hire all those viola and cello players.
Still, those string accompaniments are pretty sharp. Not only are the players solid, but Lerche knows just where to place them. "Like Lazenby"-- an ordinary little ballad with a strange "take me back" metaphor involving "the second James Bond" George Lazenby-- successfully morphs into a lush slice of garden pop with the addition of those swooning strings. Even on such well rounded, unapologetically Beatles-indebted fare like "Words & Music" and "Guess It's Gonna Rain Today", the strings are what you end up taking away with you. (There's nothing coy about Lerche's Fab Four flirtations-- most of the songs found here owe a great deal to the band's mid-to-late-1960s studio output.)
Not everything here is salvageable, like the irritatingly sugary "If Only" and the meandering closer "Goodnight". When there is no melodic hook and arrangements become prototypical, all you are really left with is Lerche himself and his Confessions of a Teenage Romantic thing. It nearly tarnishes the stronger cuts on repeat listenings, his cutesy, dry delivery drawing further to the front, his lyricism more apparently banal and dopey. Even if a lot of Heartbeat Radio is affable and politely poppy, a lot of it is so pointedly bland that you can't help but wonder if the good stuff stands out only because of the beige filler around it. That, or you've let your inner-cynic get the best of you. So if it seems to be a nice enough day outside and you're not feeling particularly sinister, Heartbeat Radio should suffice nicely for a little while.
