Candy Bars Issue #28

On Cutting Ti-Gers in Half and Understanding Narravation (New Granada)

By Bill Copeland
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:05pm

The songs of On Cutting Ti-Gers in Half and Understanding Narravation are pleasant, mellow numbers: acoustic guitars, keys, drums, and a cello make a lot of sounds that tickle the ear. It’s unfortunate then that Tampa-based Candy Bars never take their sound anywhere. Most of the tracks on the trio’s debut sound too much alike with singer Daniel Martinez’s smooth, eerie voice intriguing the listener at first, until you realize that he approaches every song with the same breezy, laid-back style. While listening to the album, I continued to fruitlessly anticipate something different.

“Violet” starts to swing with tension but that tension never becomes momentum. “Enough to Choke a Cold Air” is the second song that comes close to having commercial appeal. Featuring nicely textured vocals, “Enough to Choke a Cold Air” does have something of a presence, grabbing your ear, but its strong moments are brief and fleeting.

Candy Bars seem stuck between baroque and modern influences when they should be fusing them and moving forward. Melissa Castellano’s cello is the only saving grace as she cuts an edgier path through some of these tedious songs; It’s too bad she isn’t more prominently featured. A band doesn’t have a right to be this boring and Candy Bars will only appeal to people who live in slow motion.