(Minty Fresh/Inevitable)

A little bit of everything, a whole lot of nothing in particular 

If I became the benevolent dictator of music promotion for 2008, my first edict would be that press releases can no longer mention either (a) the band’s influences or (b) other bands that the band kinda sounds like. I know it’s effective journalistic shorthand, but it really can damage the band’s reception. Case in point: Melbourne group All India Radio, whose fourth album proper comes garlanded with comparisons to Sigur Ros, Boards Of Canada, and Portishead. Once you start playing this game it isn’t too hard to throw in some more comparisons: lead singer Leona Prue sounds quite a bit like fellow Aussie songstress Sia; the lead single, Persist, sounds like what you might get if you cleaned up Blonde Redhead and made Sia do vocal duties; and … well, you get the gist. The problem here is that, on Fall, All India Radio sound a little bit like everything and thus not much like a band called All India Radio. There’s nothing technically wrong with this album: indeed, all of the ingredients are here for a memorable downtempo encounter, and Leona Prue’s vocals are truly stunning. Still, their popularity with television producers (their music has appeared on One Tree Hill) indicates that there’s none of what the literary critic Dale Peck called ‘the salt and yeast of art’ here: Fall has all of the ingredients, and even some of the charm, but the average listener will find the dish less tasty than All India Radio and this reviewer had hoped.

***˝

CHAD PARKHILL

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