Harlem
Oh Boy (Female Fantasy Records)
Reviewed by Elise Barbin, Fri., March 22, 2019
Harlem last left us in the Year of Our Lord 2010, evangelizing the tail end of garage-pop's comeback wave. Back for their third LP nearly 10 years later, Michael Coomers and Curtis O'Mara still lay in reverb-laden bubblegum influences, this time taking a more subdued route by opting for keys over busted guitar amps. Amidst the album's largely forgettable lyrics sits a slew of oddly disparate pop culture call-outs to Princess Di, the Beatles, and Lana Del Rey. Cocaine yacht rock ditty "Dreams Is Destiny" offers a glint of Harlem's preciously wild ways viewed from the lens of a washed-out memory, a prescient metaphor for the duo's mindset. What churns disappointment is glimpsing the could-have-been: an album of grown-up, exploratorive, pop sensibility. Modern analog to the Beach Boys' Sunflower, perhaps, Oh Boy instead clocks in too wearisome for a comeback.
