I Am The World Trade Center

I Am The World Trade Center have had their fair share of publicity over the last 12 months, some of which was because of their catchy and infectious pop tunes and the rest was for, well, other reasons. Nevertheless, the duo of Kindercore's co-founder Dan Geller and Amy Dykes have battled on to make The Tight Connection, their sophomore effort. One of the biggest changes is that the band is no longer using an old laptop to record their music - they bought a better laptop - but that doesn't make much difference to the overall sound. It might sound a little bit more polished, but there is so much similarity between this and the first album that some people might write them off as a one trick pony, but the songwriting is much stronger, as are the vocal performances. Everything else, namely the drum loops and keyboard blips, are just the same. The only foot they put wrong is an ill-advised cover of Blondie's "Call Me‚" which isn't very good at all. Much better is a quirky and fun take on the Stone Roses' "Shoot Me Down." And then there's the name. There's no getting past the fact that the band's name is bound to cause some kind of controversy, for very obvious reasons. There's a real chance that the name might overshadow the music, which would be a real shame, because there's more than enough merit to the contents to make it well worth a listen.