No Kids are the non-children of P:ano, a Vancouver-based indie pop group who borrowed from an unusual array of influences-- from Broadway to post-disco-- over a catalog of three little-heard albums, one 7" single, and an 11-track EP. After the departure of co-founding member Larissa Loyva, P:ano's remaining threesome have returned as No Kids, changing course from 2005's ukulele-driven Ghost Pirates Without Heads for a debut that rivals the Dirty Projectors' The Getty Address in its art-saturated omnivorousness, though its appetites aren't always within its means. On Come Into My House, everything from present-day urban radio to kitchen-sink chamber-pop to college glee clubs serve as fodder for F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque depictions of effete East Coast student loneliness. This old beach house is an extravagant one, peopled by characters who probably weren't hurt by the housing-market slump.
Plenty of indie pop bands borrow from 1960s Motown, but No Kids' appropriation of contemporary r&b puts them in a lineage that runs from Orange Juice's Chic-style guitars and Scritti Politti's soulful balladry to Hot Chip's self-aware electropop-- and, alas, labelmate Hey Willpower's un-FutureSex-y Timberlake sounds, too. When the compositions are as engaging as the intricate percussion, as on advance mp3s like piano-based male-female duet "For Halloween" or the falsetto-frosted "The Beaches All Closed", songwriter Nick Krgovich conjures a world of empty vacation homes and full scrapbooks. The T-Pain-esque Auto-Tuning on "Listen For It/Courtyard Music" comes off as an eccentricity next to what sounds like bassoon, but Krgovich's protagonists have eccentricities instead of girlfriends. "Neighbour's Party" interpolates the slinky piano riff from Amerie's "Crush" as if it were a sample; the obviousness of the reference is a painful reminder that Amerie would be a lot more fun to hear blasting from your neighbor's party.
Of course, No Kids know this, too. "It's a dance in my heart," Krgovich and Julia Chirka sing-- not a night in the club. Opener "Great Escape" describes "wandering around the gardens on this great estate" with the band's Jimmy Jam-Terry Lewis fascination hidden behind lush orchestration, marching-band drum rolls, and quiet wistfulness. When the time comes for celebration on "I Love the Weekend" or "Old Iron Gate", Krgovich's melismas flit over Brazilian rhythms instead of icy-hot r&b. "Four Freshmen Locked Out as the Sun Goes Down" sets barbershop-style harmonies atop unobtrusive strums. Lyrical mentions of upper-crust academic life are about as frequent here as musical allusions to the pop charts.
In Fitzgerald novels like The Beautiful and Damned, the characters may come from the WASP elite, but their passions burn like the booze in which they can't help but overindulge. Come Into My House represents another side of paradise-- the yearning of the well-to-do young intellectual who doesn't do well when it comes to matters of the heart, the insider who finds himself on the outside (with his pockets full of saltwater taffy). The album could use a little more of Fitzgerald's fiery extremes, and a bit less of meandering disappointments like "You Looked Good to Me" or "Dancing in the Stacks", but at its best it's a clever piece of musical storytelling by a band unintimidated by genre.
