The Bird and the Bee sounds so much like Imogen Heap at times that one could be cynical about it and say it was just a big ripoff act. But if one really enjoyed Ms. Heap's work so much and knows it'll be a while before we get another album from her, you could let this self-titled album from fowl & insect sate your Imogen jones at the very least.
Of course the duo that is Inara George and Greg Kurstin is not identical to the former Frou Frou singer. It is electronic in the ways that Speak For Yourself is, but when The Bird and The Bee are being organic, it's certainly a different approach and is a much more whimsical and less intense journey than Heap's. Songs like "I'm a Broken Heart," with its harpsichord-sounding keyboards and soft brass, could've been from Pet Sounds had Brian Wilson made the album on this side of the millennium. "My Fair Lady," with its French lounge soundtrack style, is not far from Pizzicato Five's own 1990s adaptations of the same genre. A few songs later, there's a dirty south Triton beat put alongside an old upright piano in "Because," because crunk is as much an influence on home life as any other musical genre these days.
Inara George's voice is certainly strong, at times resounding from the heavens and at other times coming in as if she were sitting right next to you. At times, there's a hint of Astrud Gilberto in George's alto voice that has earned that comparison with the most famous of all discovered housewives, adds to the auditory canvas of what ends up a nicely domestic electronica record. That disarming quality keeps a song like "F*cking Boyfriend" from becoming vulgar both in the obscene and the angsty sense, and simply presents a frustrated girl looking for some evidence of commitment in her fella. That said, singer's lyrical subject matters are another strong point in the "simple but saying so much" approach. The pleasant musings on the irritations of getting bad photographs taken, for example, is the subject of the album's strongest pop song "I Hate Camera." The whole album's stories and projects are things that normal folks will relate to much more than Fergie's jetset parties.
The Bird and the Bee is just a great, sweet record.
