Fischerspooner

Ah, so it appears that art-pop duo Casey Fischer and Warren Spooner have survived the demise of the electroclash genre they so eagerly became poster boys for. Eschewing the conceptual to be a bit more practical on album number two, the pair even hired studio musicians and claim classic AOR rock as inspiration. They also bring in such disparate collaborators as Linda Perry, Beck/Air producer Tony Hoffer, Madonna’s Music mastermind Mirwais and, most bizarrely, the late cultural critic Susan Sontag, who penned the ironic fist-pumper "We Need a War.” First single "Just Let Go” is awfully dance floor-friendly; "Never Win” sounds swiped from the Faint; they follow the Postal Service route on "A Kick in the Teeth”; and their Odyssey ends with a simmering, expansive cover of Boredom’s "Circle (Vision Creation New Sun).” In between lies much water-treading, but while Fischerspooner’s eyebrow-arched electro-pop never approaches the heights of their initial hit "Emerge,” the joy of low expectations is the ease of exceeding them.