The Electric Soft Parade: No Need To Be Downhearted

The Electric Soft Parade
No Need To Be Downhearted
Better Looking Records [2007]







Fire Note Says: ESP have not lost a step and return with some new tricks!

Album Review:
The Electric Soft Parade had it all after their debut album Holes In The Wall [2002], with a Mercury Music Prize nomination and critical acclaim but like so many others their sophomore effort was met with some criticism. Harnessing that criticism into positive motivation, The Electric Soft Parade are back with No Need To Be Downhearted, which is an album that finds them reinventing their sound and showing off why they were so loved in the first place. I believe that with some of the pressure gone, brothers Tom and Alex White were able to completely make the album they wanted to make. No Need To Be Downhearted is an appropriate title because the album is full of catchy memorable upbeat pop songs that have a nice balance of their old sound with an infused reborn British spirit. The album stands the test of repeat listens and definitely grows on the listener because you cannot catch all the little musical elements that hide within their music in one passing. The Electric Soft Parade sound very current, fresh and energized on No Need To Be Downhearted and it is a perfect album to win back their old fans and create many new ones.

Key Tracks: "If That's The Case, Then I Don't Know", "Life In The Back Seat", "Appropriate Ending"

Bands With Similar Fire:
Grandaddy
Embrace
South

Official Electric Soft Parade Website
The Electric Soft Parade MySpace
The Electric Soft Parade Info [Allmusic]
Better Looking Records

-Reviewed by Natalie Colibri