Dresses – Sun Shy

Have you ever dreamt of butterflies, pixie dust, early morning sunshine or white puffy clouds directing you towards a wonderful day? No?….well neither have I until I heard Sun Shy by Dresses. And that’s not neccesarily a good thing. 

The debut album from this Portland, OR couple (Timothy Heller and Jared Ryan Maldonado) on SideOneDummy Records has potential. The smokey, hypnotic vocal performance by Maldonado is the shining star here. Heller’s vocals on the other hand are way too Jason Mraz like for my tastes and quite uninteresting. There are glimpses of funky and creative songwriting but not nearly enough to enjoy this release all the way through.The quirky, playful atmosphere and the extremely polished, scrubbed and way too happy pop sound overtake whatever few good moments exist here…and there are a few.

One of those good moments happens right off the bat with the albums first track, Back To Life. The smart, trance like vibe throughout the song is somewhat intoxicating. It almost feels like a B-Side off of any Morcheeba record which is just fine with me. But this is where most of those good moments begin and end. The “single” which is the title track, is a trippy, dance pop song that sounds like it was created in a Top 40 song processor and spit out for radio consumption…quite vapid and disappointing. It feels out of place. It aims at an auidence that mostly likely won’t understand or even like the rest of the work here. 

If you’re looking for places where the potenial starts to break through, look to Friends Are Dead for it’s disjointed but satisfying guitar sound and introspective lyrics, as well as the sing-songy Sticks and Stones where Maldonado’s voice leaves you with a warm feeling as the album comes to a close.

Unfortuntely, after a few listens, the whole of this recording sounds like a love letter written to its creators (and the birds and the clouds and the pixie fairies) by its creators. That’s great for them but not so much for the rest of us. That being said, there’s enough upside here (barely) to explore a future release and find out if any of the potential displayed on Sun Shy ever gets realized.