The Sleepy Jackson
Personality (One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird)
Release Date: Jul 25, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Astralwerks
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Album Review: Personality (One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird) by The Sleepy Jackson
Great, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Since the Sleepy Jackson formed in 1999, their founder - Australian oddball Luke Steele - has ditched no less than three sets of bandmates. This second album features just Steele and drummer Malcolm Clark. But any fears that the ethereal grandeur of 2003's Lovers might be swapped for White Stripes-esque minimalism are swept away in a torrent of strings, horns and backing choirs.
Based on rating 7/10
Unlike the Sleepy Jackson's dazzling but scattered debut album, Lovers, which offered so many different sounds and ideas that it threatened to cross the fine line between eclectic and schizophrenic, Luke Steele and company's second album, Personality, focuses the band's ambitions -- to an extent. On Personality, Steele replaces Lovers' wide-ranging musical flights of fancy with a sound that concentrates on his devotion to George Harrison's Technicolor, spiritual pop (which is kind of cool in itself; after decades of musicians inspired by the Beatles, relatively few have modeled themselves after Harrison's work), and fuses it with the soft rock and symphonic pop fetishes he's also displayed in his earlier work. The album's sound is nothing if not huge.