Fyfe Dangerfield

Fly Yellow Moon (Geffen)

By Melissa Bobbitt
Published: March 30th, 2010 | 7:00am

"Some heart is always going to get broken / Somebody's always going to cry," intones Guillemots' Fyfe Dangerfield on his solo debut Fly Yellow Moon. Too true … which is why the 10-song album seems so disposable and too familiar. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so they say, but the D-man is so indebted to the sounds of Keane, Brendan Benson, and Leonard Cohen on this album that those artists ought to be given residuals.

The collection mostly flies a steady course of acoustic mopey-ness ("So Brand New," and the uber-mellow and ironically named "Livewire")—but every so often, the album jolts like a Taser as it does on opener "When You Walk in the Room.” With Dangerfield’s pained, white-soul yelp, the song is one rude awakening as squelching guitars ape John Mayer's style as he pines, "I want you endlessly." Only on the piano-driven opus "Faster Than the Setting Sun" does Dangerfield really hit his stride, in which he sings nostalgically, "They don't slow dance around me no more." Cymbals splash like the sea's waves, with a sweeping chorus of falsetto "whoo-eee."

It's a pity the rest of Fly Yellow Moon isn't as dangerous and daring as this track. Dangerfield’s narratives come off as those written by someone who does a lot of dreaming, but not a lot of doing. Perhaps if he ceased trying to borrow feelings from his musical compatriots, this album might not go such a sleepy route.

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