When you're a young band, at first it's kind of tough to work out what it is you want to sound like. When you have lots of ideas, it's best to work on your songs before you record them, and it's probably a good idea to have an idea of what you want your album to sound like. Otherwise, things can get a bit sloppy, and that's the primary flaw of The Coy's debut album, A Beautiful Sad. The Coy is a husband and wife combo of Jennifer and Robert Hart. On the cover, they look like a hard-rockin' metal couple, but their music goes from folk to kinda gothy to a weird alternative-rock blend to kinda folky goth and all points in between. On the first track, "He Dances" starts with a loud rock guitar, but it's answered with really melodramatic operatic over-singing. The rest of the record is a zealous mix of oversinging and over performing. Sure, they're trying out different styles, but as said before, you should know who you are before you release your debut album. (Methinks they're a folkies who don't want to be folkies, because when they perform material that's more traditionally folk, they aren't bad.)
What's frustrating about A Beautiful Sad is that the main flaw is so obvious, it overpowers the record. Jennifer's range isn't that strong, which is frustrating, because in the brief moments where she stays within it, such as the otherwise lovely "Happy," she sounds really good. (To some extent this might not be her fault; her voice does fall a little high within the mix.) Otherwise, A Beautiful Sad shows that The Coy is a band that could be good but they need to seriously work on refining their style and determining who they want to be and how they choose to sound.
--Joseph Kyle
Artist Website: http://www.thecoy.com
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