Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Everybody has a first crush, perhaps even lots of them, that moment in which the stars seem to explode and swirl with the force of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. When the pain and desire of wanting to be with somebody so much is like receiving a blow to the head and in which months, even days later you admonish yourself for feeling the prize berk and abject fool that you feel you have become.  Poetry gets written, often as painful as the first fleeting glimpse in which you saw your crush glance your way and in which smitten may as well be tattooed upon your forehead forever.

For Karen O, lead vocalist of the band yeah Yeah Yeah, Crush Songs is her first foray into the solo album and it is one, like your first crush, one that can be seen as a mixed bag. You remember the feeling of overwhelming intensity with a smile but it can also become a mill stone in which such issues can be engulfing, they can take you too places in which darkness festers and the awe-inspiring becomes something that conquers completely.

It may not have been meant in the way that it comes across but there has always been something profoundly off putting in many people’s eyes about the declaration on love in such mediums. Not that there is anything against it, it worked for John Lennon and Yoko Ono after all but the obvious genuine outpouring of physical tenderness is not one that comes across for public consumption. There is an element to it that can remind listeners of some of the phrases you can come across on social media, the affection that just seems to perfect, the public outpouring of devotion, perhaps some things aren’t meant for the ears of others!

For Karen O, a supremely talented woman, the autobiographical coupling of Crush Songs is short, sweet but at times something that you feel you should be suggesting in an awkward that perhaps a hotel room might be the best place in which to say such tantalising sentiments. It has to be said that it may leave the listener unsure of whether to congratulate the artist or discretely throw a sheet over the parrot sitting in the corner of the room, or ask your aged aunt if she fancies going out for a long overdue drive to the sea front, even if it is pouring down with rain and the sea is an angry black colour and the waves crashing into the beach with the force of World War Two battle scene, some things are just left best to the imagination.

As a set of songs, Crush Songs works but it also perhaps arguably is an exercise in self-indulgence. From the meandering to the physical, songs such as NYC Baby, Indian Summer and Native Korean Rock  make the album worth a listen, you just might not want to revel to closely in the idea.

Ian D. Hall