wears the trousers magazine

Doctors & Dealers
Lost Friends & Newfound Habits •••½
Bluesong

On first hearing Doctors & Dealers I initially contemplated whether Stockholm’s Sparrow had named her project in tribute to the Dirty Pretty Things song of the same name. Whether or not this is the case, who knows, but on Lost Friends & Newfound Habits there are certainly flecks of the formulated ramshackle pop produced by Carl Barat and co. There are also dollops of lo-fi goodness, marching chords and kitsch, knowing vocals, but it’s Sparrow’s satirical lyrics that prove to be this album’s salvation.

On this follow-up to 2007’s frank and endearing Confessions Of A Drunken Mind, Doctors & Dealers have achieved everything that was to be expected of Norwegian sensation Ida Maria. Sparrow clearly has not let her well-documented party lifestyle overshadow her love for songwriting, a move that is heavily reflected in her witty delivery in comparison to Sivertsen’s nonsensical splutters. ‘He Went Down’ pouts its way through confessions of debauchery and tales of an adulterous relationship before concluding with deadpan seriousness, “he’s not cool”. 

Elsewhere, ‘How Many Hours Can A Cat Stay Asleep?’ asks long-standing questions that are cluttered with pop culture references, while associating itself with the kind of feline-friendly music Psapp were producing a few years ago. For duet fans, ‘The Odds Are On Our Side’ features a perfectly pitched guest appearance from Of Montreal’s James Huggins, the charming playoff between trumpet and piano complementing the male versus female vocals nicely.

Perhaps to the fault of Sparrow’s self-production, the album has a very prominent downside. When midway through you realise you’ve been listening to the same tempo for a good half an hour, the continuous rhythm and piano bashing does begin to grate; in Sparrow’s topsy-turvy world, ramshackle almost becomes uniform. At 34 minutes, Lost Friends & Newfound Habits is hardly testing its tether in length but would undoubtedly benefit from a cut here or there. An interval in the form of ‘A Phonecall Home’, twelve songs into the album, is a beautiful rest from the otherwise relentless plod in the form of a downbeat heart-to-heart.

Tough to swallow whole, Lost Friends & Newfound Habits might best be served in portions; an individual track would sit perfectly on a compilation, soundtrack or mixtape, and there’s probably at least two great EPs in here, but as it is, all together, frequent yet pensive breathers are suggested.

Tiffany Daniels
UK release date: 21/04/09; www.myspace.com/doctorsanddealersband

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