Her Space Holiday

For those Her Space Holiday fans itching for a change, Marc Bianchi has finally answered your call, but you may wish he hadn't. After a good decade of floating in space, the band's mastermind has returned to Earth, where he's unplugged his laptop, forgot the samples and laid his electronicist ways to rest. What you then get is XOXO Panda and the New Kid Revival, a purely organic indie pop album, plain and simple, which may mark something different for Bianchi but hardly something new for pop fans. With an au natural set-up (guitar, bass, drums, some occasional banjo and glockenspiel), Bianchi delivers 14 indie-by-numbers tracks that are as straightforward and conventional as they get, adding little to the genre and sounding, well, a bit dull. On past Her Space Holiday records you could at least expect Bianchi to attempt to push things forward, even if he sometimes fell flat on his face. But here, he's so middle-of-the-road it hurts, reminding you that change isn't always a good thing.