Look Around the Corner

by Quantic & Alice Russell with the Combo Bárbaro

It's taken me a long time to figure out where I stand on this album, which brings together the prolific Will Holland, best known as Quantic, with UK vocalist Alice Russell.

When I first heard this album, I wasn't happy with it at all.  I thought it was exceedingly dull, with only moments that shone through.  The more I listened to it though, the more my opinion changed.  I feel like this is an album that couldn't decide what it wanted to be, and it goes through a number of different shifts as it moves from the first track to the last.

The first four songs are just dull.  Russell takes Quantic's music, and makes out of it standard, ephemeral pop confections that do nothing for me.  With the fifth song, 'I'll Keep My Light in My Window', more promise starts to appear, but it is when that song ends and is followed by 'Una Tarde En Mariquita', an instrumental track, that I began to take notice.

I'm sure Russell has her fans, but the truth is, I bought this album for Quantic and the Combo Bábaro.  Their last album together was brilliant, and I wanted to see what they would do in a more pop-friendly setting.  As the disc proceeds past that sixth track, I feel that they are more and more in charge of things, and Russell is working to their ends.  'Su Suzy' is the high-point of this album, but from that track on, things are pretty good.