Days of Abandon

I once knew a guy who, while gazing up at a clear night sky with a young lady companion, pointed at the brightest star and softly declared, “That’s your star.” This album is thirty-seven saccharine minutes of that same eye-roll-inducing sentiment. Kip Berman has never been a particularly artful lyricist, but at least the band’s early recordings were able to musically express an understanding of romantic love more complicated than that of your average Tigerbeat subscriber. The songs were sweet, but they also had a manic, noisy energy to them, and the production was more murky than gauzy. It was euphoric but tentative, and its vulnerability was endearing. That’s all gone now. This album is the soundtrack to a Hallmark card.