ahh! a new full length joy electric album at last! its great to have some new material from joy electric, but with this album there is one catch: its not original material, its an album of cover songs. now, i'm not saying thats bad, i'm just saying its not as good as hearing ronnie martin's own stuff.this collection is a set of cover songs from some of today's bigger bands, its not old songs, but rather ronnie's take on songs from the last few years. he covers everything from fiest's '1,2,3,4' to coldplay's 'viva la vida'. it's pretty interesting to hear syth versions of many of these songs, but the problem is that i am not really up to date on what is on the radio anymore. i have a cd player in my car, so i rarely listen to the radio, so much of these tunes are new to me. since i'm not that familiar with the original material, the songs tend to sound a bit out of place with the usual joy electric sound. the thing about joy electric's catalog of music is that it is very unique and out there. to put his sound on something that is pretty standard, like a rock song, it seems like he is limiting himself by having to play by someone else's rules. some of the songs, like keane's 'somewhere only we know' fall flat and are pretty bland. but then there are some others, some of the songs are so beautiful in their original form that ronnie is able to take these gems and polish them with his own sound and create something magical. the best example of this is the song 'falling slowly' from the 'once' soundtrack. i would not have thought this simple song, originally played on an acoustic guitar and piano, would lend itself to the techy sound of a synth, but it becomes something more than it was. the song soars to new heights, and digs even deeper with ronnie's emotional vocals. the ethereal sound of it is pure paradise. also, its nice to see him collaborating on the album with his wife, who plays a moog synth on some of the songs.
some of the covers are bland, but songs like 'falling slowly' are reimagined in such an amazing new way that the album is worth owning purely for that one song!
