By: Rachael W. Gilkey
Rating: 5/11

KaiserCartel is made up of Brooklyn-based songwriting duo Courtney Kaiser (vocals, guitar, xylophone, piano) and Benjamin Cartel (vocals, guitar, drums, xylophone). Playing together since 2004, the duo’s songs are mellow, often wistful, and punctuated with soft percussion and a feathery vocal twang that leaves them sounding just this side of indie-folk.

Kaiser sings beautifully, with the timbre of Aimee Mann, but lacks the poignant storytelling of Mann’s lyrics. The catchy “Season Song,” complete with whistling and handclaps, covers the unfortunate saccharine gamut of “bumblebees” and “fireflies” as metaphors for summer. The chorus rounds out with a simple, cloying rhyme: “These are the things we see each year / that show we’ve grown. / It’s time to cheer / seasons of the year.” Though all the right ingredients for a jangly pop-infused song are there, it still falls flat.

However, and perhaps much more rare, this simplicity does work well in other areas. In “Oh No,” the song progresses from “I think I love you” to “I think I want you” to “I think I’ll wreck you,” all the while splitting each line with repetitions of the title phrase, “Oh no”, crooned over and over again in Kaiser’s sweet voice. The music builds with the lyrics in a predictable but very much likable way, indicative of their lyrics-meet-music writing style. Simple rhyming phrases are taken straight from the title and repeated over and over. “The Flood," one of Cartel’s few appearances on lead vocals, creates a similar word picture; the music darkens, Cartel sing, “Here comes the flood / you better run," and by all accounts musically, that is exactly what’s happening.

Though not mind blowing, the clarity of Kaiser’s voice supported by Cartel’s backing vocals makes for the kind of music to hold hands to and gaze longingly. It doesn’t require thought, just the ability to appreciate a good harmony, to live in the moment.

In other words, perfect for a summer fling, but by September you might not be able to stand it.