Overcome by Happiness by The Pernice Brothers (Review)

After the initial wonder with all of the songs, there are definitely songs that begin to take a backseat to others.
Overcome by Happiness, The Pernice Brothers

What might you get if Eric Matthews had laid off on the Burt Bacharach and had spent more time sitting out on the back porch, listening to folk and country? Well, you might get something like Overcome by Happiness. It fits into that whole orchestral pop category that Matthews thrives in. (It’s Heavy in Here is still one incredibly suave album.)

The Pernice Brothers (hint: they’re not actually brothers) actually consists of one Joe Pernice and a bunch of other people who help him out. What you end up with is an album of 12 nice, laid-back acoustic tunes that are all wrapped up in flattering string and brass arrangements. That is where the main problem of this disc lies. I’ve noticed that lot of albums in this category suffer from the same problem. They almost too good too much of the time. After awhile, the songs begin to sound the same. Pernice starts singing in that lazy hazy voice, with that lightly strummed guitar, singing so effortlessly about this woe or that woe. After the initial wonder with all of the songs, there are definitely songs that begin to take a backseat to others.

However, Overcome by Happiness does have some truly beautiful ballads on it. The opening songs, “Crestfallen” and the title track, are incredibly catchy, but with enough melancholy to make you sit up and notice. “All I Know” manages to shed a little light on that whole “my girl just left me and now I’m feeling blue” style of songwriting with some truly nice imagery and a very fitting string arrangement that really does all you could ask a string arrangement to do. And even the song about a suicide, “Chicken Wire,” sounds almost pleasant without diminishing the emotional impact of the lyrics.

However, the light acoustic strumming and the string and brass backdrops all tend to blur. The songs never really stray from the same formula, which Pernice obviously knows both inside and out. This album starts out brilliantly, and has enough high points to keep my interest. But by the end of the album, my interest has begun to wane. However, I’m always willing to go back for more.

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