Yours Truly

Given the nastiness of the music produced in the '80s, you wouldn't expect so much interest in it. Yet there are dozens of compilations around that celebrate that decade, and these days there are some artists who have taken it upon themselves to ape that sound. Yours Truly are the latest to try this approach - Linda Smith has apparently been releasing her tapes for a few years but now that she's teamed up with Paul Baroody, they've tried to go back in time about 15 years. Domesticated claims to be the album that you wished the Human League made, a '80s new wave album with no filler. (I thought that they already did that - it was called Dare, and it sold by the bucket-load.) That leaves Domesticated somewhat redundant, because the album it claims to be exists and it was better. The Human League were obviously a big influence on the music here (they even borrow a few riffs here and there), but the songs lack that certain something that would make them memorable. If you try to take the album at face value, it falls flat because it has about as much depth as your typical '80s album - the songs all have a similar happy, bouncy feel to them, thanks to the tinkling beats and fake string arrangements. So it doesn't matter if the lyrics are dark or optimistic, it all comes across as pretty much one-dimensional. It sounds horribly dated and ultimately grating - even at 34 minutes, this feels like it is about 25 minutes too long.