I should start this review with an apology or a disclaimer. I eagerly volunteered for reviewing duties when I heard that the Elle Milano album was up for grabs. I'd made a mental note of the band earlier this year as an act that I would probably like. Having now listened to their music, the only explanation I can give myself is that I must have confused them with someone else that I heard, fleetingly, on the radio: as what this band do is so far from the kind of music that I find enjoyable, or even listenable, that I found it quite a struggle to force myself to give the album the required number of listens in order to be able to write something coherent for this review”¦The first barrier that I failed to overcome was the quite outstandingly irritating vocal of front-man Adam Crisp. The band are from the UK, but Crisp manages to sound equally fake when singing with an English accent as with an American one (he veers between the two, often within a line or two in the same track). He has one of those whiney angst-filled voices that, for me, is like a red rag to a bull.  Strangled vowels abound (witness the pronunciation of “home” and “on your own” on opening track 'Laughing All the Way to the Plank'), reaching a nadir with the, frankly, bizarre vocal on the opening lines of 'Curiosity Killed the Pop Star' (the obligatory “the music biz is so corrupt and our life is so hard maaan” track). Semi spoken-word / rap bits are also thrown into the mix, to no better effect, on several tracks ('Meanwhile in Hollywood', 'Katsuki and the Stilettoed Stranger').My second objection is the weak quality of the lyrics, which range from the embarrassing (“It’s easy / getting your attention / we go “sex, sex, sex, sex”” from 'Laughing All the Way to the Plank') to the nonsensical (see most of 'My Brother, The Astronaut' which manages the triple whammy of being lyrically, rhythmically and musically incoherent). This would not matter so much if the lyrics were not delivered in such a serious, cod-angst-filled way: there’s nothing wrong with a band singing rubbish in a humorous carefree manner, but this band sings rubbish as if it was the MOST serious and heartfelt stuff IN THE WORLD. Two songs in particular that made me wince were the near-random addition (with absolutely no appropriate contextualization) of “... and in the Middle East” half way through 'Meanwhile in Hollywood' ”“ presumably to make it sound a little bit topical and edgy; and the phrase (endlessly repeated throughout the song) “What’s life sound like when you’re looking in the eyes of the carousel?” ”“ a classic example of a series of words that have been strung together in a supposedly profound way but which actually mean a big fat nothing when you really try to think about them.You may have realised by now that I really disliked most of this. Musically the sound was over-produced “rock” with all the rough edges removed, often overlaid with a bit of plinky-plonk piano. The track that I disliked the least was 'I Know It’s Good, But I’m Playing It Down' which, to its credit, at least has a pleasant melody that the piano picks out throughout. But really I’m clutching at straws here. I honestly don’t enjoy giving such a bad review to an album that a bunch of people have devoted time and energy to creating but, truly, this has been ”“ for me ”“ a pretty gruelling listening experience ”“ not recommended. 15%Links Elle Milano [myspace]