Doctors and Dealers -‘Lost Friends and Newfound Habits’ (Bluesong Records)

There’s footage from early 1980s comedy show Not The Nine O’Clock News, where there’s an affectionate parody of Kate Bush. And that’s kind of how I feel at times about the sophomore release from the one-woman Swedish band Sparrow, who records as Doctors & Dealers. It seems almost to be a homage, almost mickey-take of other artists like Regina Spektor or bands like the Cardigans or the Concretes.

It’s the 21st century equivalent of buying an album purely on the strength of one single and getting it home and discovering that, uh, actually, the single is the best thing about it. Opening track ‘On the dancefloor’ has reportedly been mentioned many blogs all over the world (including this one). The problem is that it’s by far the best thing on the album, which I eagerly awaited getting set by the promotions company.

Although it’s not a long album -fifteen songs in thirty six minutes, there are some good little bits across the album. James Huggins from Of Montreal duets on ‘The odds are on our side’ which will no doubt be taken by bloggers to their hearts across the world. My problem isn’t that this is a bad album, rather that I feel it’s a bit much to take in one sitting. It’s a little bit too cutesy all in one go. Not in the sense of that awful recent album by The Boy Least Likely To by a long way, but whilst I’m happy to listen to two or three tracks at a time, I find I cannot listen to the whole fifteen songs as one album

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Lost Friends and Newfound Habits is out now on Bluesong Records.

Doctors and Dealers website/Doctors and Dealers myspace

Doctors and Dealers -‘On the dancefloor.’ mp3

Doctors and Dealers -‘The Odds Are On Our Side.’ mp3

Doctors and Dealers -‘Sunday Morning.’

Doctors and Dealers -‘He Went Down.’