Correatown lovely, but forgettable.

cover-correatownCorreatown
Etch the Line
(Another Room Recordings)

Los Angeles band Correatown have a lot in common with Blitzen Trapper – they both have gorgeous and lush instrumentation that’s overlaid with smooth, pretty vocals, along with a little twang that makes the music seem timeless. It’s very much as if both acts exist timelessly, producing music that could have easily been recorded anytime since the late ’60s Byrds era. Sadly, much like Blitzen Trapper, Correatown is imminently boring and forgettable.

While singer Angela Correa has a voice that is mellifluous, it’s unremarkable, especially when placed in this setting. Up to this point, her best-known musical appearance was as the singing voice for the character played by Jenna Fischer in the biopic parody Walk Hard, and it’s unlikely that’s she going to make it much past that point. If this is the music Correa wants to make, that’s her path and her choice, but the banal indie pop on the first side of this 10-inch seems like brilliance when considered in the context of the dance remix of “Isomer” on the second. The beats do nothing, and it seems like a concerted effort to make a play for soundtrack inclusion on some teen drama.

I’m generally loathe to use the word generic when describing anything, but Correatown is every band ever pushed by a label for some lousy film or TV show starring the hot young things of the moment. They’ll end up playing in some scene in a club, background to the histrionics of whatever’s going on between the main characters.

“Why’d you sleep with him, you skank?”
“Just because you’re frigid, that doesn’t make me a skank!”
“I’m not frigid – I was molested by his father!”
*shock!*
*horror!*

While the fact that this has been released on limited-edition 10-inch vinyl (seaglass blue, for those who care about that sort of thing) makes a lovely play for the hipster cognoscenti, it’s nothing spectacular. Etch the Line is a lovely effort, but ultimately lacking in anything to keep the listener returning for anything beyond a polite first listen.

Etch The Line 10″ Vinyl EP by Correatown