I sympathize with all those who had to double-take on the above. I, too, experienced a peculiar sense of déjà vu upon first viewing the white promo sleeve emblazoned with "Tender Trap" and the K logo. You figure someone's banking on the confusion of the record buying market, much like the once-clever (now unemployed) Internet pioneers who correctly questioned our collective spelling ability and bought up such choice domain names as Amazone.com and Salan.com. (A point clearly discovered by all too hasty Pitchfork readers who forget the "media" suffix and find themselves encouraged to buy livestock. Accident? I don't think so).
For clarification purposes, Tender Trap's relationship to Tiger Trap is merely coincidental but they will likely appeal to the same audience: a largely (though I don't mean to invoke stereotypes) female fanbase whose taste runs toward short, jangly, dreamy, twee-influenced indie pop. Tsunami's Jenny Toomey once asserted that "punk means cuddle," but it took Heavenly's "PUNK Girl" to make me believe it. The warmest and fuzziest of all bands ever (even if inappropriately) associated with girls and their oft-cited ability to kick ass, Heavenly could hypothetically sing about the bloody aftermath of nuclear apocalypse and conjure visions of fluffy puppies and charming, precocious children frolicking in grassy wonderlands. Hence, they inspired legions of doe-eyed twee bands worldwide. With the suicide of Heavenly's Matthew Fletcher, the rest of the band, led by Amelia Fletcher, changed their name to Marine Research, fleshed out their angelic pop and released the lush, Sounds from the Gulf Stream.
And now, after the recent departure of keyboardist Cathy Rogers and guitarist Peter Momtchiloff, the remaining Heavenly Researchers have regrouped as Tender Trap. The band has spent the last two years writing and recording this album of eclectic, though no less ethereal, pop songs, the vast majority of which hover around a two-minute length. And while nothing on Film Molecules is exactly unexpected or newly innovative, Tender Trap is a remarkably clean, cohesive, entertaining proposition.
The opener, "Fin," builds out of an electronic pulse and resolves into a sort of featherweight shoegazer, the arrangement of which serves as a terrific showcase for Fletcher's breathy vocals. This is followed abruptly by the upbeat, jangle pop of "Oh, Katrina," which, with its pitch-perfect harmonies and quick tempo, more closely recalls Heavenly than anything else on the album.
Fletcher's candy coated melodies provide a clever juxtaposition to the implied message of her lyrics, evidenced in the bouncy "That Girl," which documents the travails of burgeoning teenage feminist whose "record collection separates women from men," and namechecks Le Tigre. Likewise, the Blondie-influenced "Face of 73," offers a subtle critique of media superficiality without veering a single step outside the retro dance-pop formula-- even Fletcher's droll vocals are dead-on.
The super-abbreviated "Dispraxic," with its stripped down metal-tinged guitar and the excellent new wave flavored "Chemical Reaction," provide Fletcher with the opportunity to rant without the ironic distance, and the evocative "Talk in Song" is an oddly dark, fractured torch song that single-handedly keeps me from issuing a pejorative comment about the slow songs on Film Molecules. That being said, the overwrought melodrama of "Emma" sounds like filler, and the minimal "Brown Eyes" only shows the unflattering limitations of Fletcher's vocal abilities.
I imagine it's difficult to pull off this kind of music without causing sweet-induced listener aneurysms and/or counting so singularly on the affectation that you lose all substance-- but the Heavenly/Marine Research/Tender Trap gang has continually represented one of the better and more sophisticated models of the genre. And on the whole, Film Molecules is no exception. It may be unlikely to win fans from audiences with allergies to saccharine, but that's not really the point, is it?
