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The Snow Fairies: Feel You Up
[Red Square]

Philadelphias The Snow Fairies play adorably twee indie-pop that places them comfortably on the Red Square Records roster. All the twee ingredients are here:  saccharine female vocals; happy, jangly guitars; nave, innocent lyrics; and songs that fall mostly under the three-minute mark.  While these ingredients make this album quite the pleasant listening experience, its these same qualities that can lead to certain pitfalls: namely, an album of songs that are so pleasant and vanilla that they seem to blend together without standing on their own.

The Snow Fairies seem to hit this problem around track eight of this thirteen-song album, but prior to that, the songs do manage to stand their ground.  Particularly, tracks six and seven, Mind the Gap and Begins stand out the former because of a great hook and the latter because the tempo is upped and the male vocals of Jayme Guokas, which are relegated to the background for most of the other songs, are allowed to take over in almost a call and response with lead vocalist Rose Bochansky.  Its not that Bochanskys vocals arent good in fact her voice, which at times resembles that of Juliana Hatfield, is even more sugary than what the lyrics call for. When she sings in December Love, I dont think I love you so much anymore.so open the door and go away from me, the tone of her voice is so sweet that you forget shes asking her lover to leave her alone.  Still, the addition of Guokas vocals on Begins add so much to that one song that I wished theyd used this approach throughout the album to break up the slight monotony that rears its head towards the albums close.

Feel You Up is The Snow Fairies first full-length release after several EPs, demos and comp appearances and it shows, only because of the slump that hits the album about halfway through. Still, the band has a knack for creating charming pop songs, and the select gems that appear on this album prove that.  With a bit more careful song selection and sequencing, their next full-length release really could be something to take note of.

This album can be purchased at Red Square Records

The Snow Fairies Official Website

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