Windmill, 'Puddle City Racing Lights' (Friendly Fire)
London piano man likes his sweetness and light laid on thick.
By Shannon Zimmerman 07.21.08 5:06 PM
With a vocal style so wide-eyed and winsome that it makes Jack Johnson sound cynical, Matthew Thomas Dillon flirts with earnest disaster on his patchy debut. Indeed, on the thickly orchestrated "Asthmatic" and "Boarding Lounges," he pushes the goopy melodrama over the line. But buoyed by lilting melodies that conjure a less cerebral Flaming Lips ("Newsflash," "Plasticine Plugs") and hired hands who jolt their irony-deficient leader with percussive sonics, Puddle City Racing Lights achieves a certain cotton-candy stickiness.
I have followed Windmill for a while. He is on a completely different level. This record deserves more than the incoherent review displayed above. Puddle City Racing Lights is like nothing else and it seems "less cerebral" folk won't get that.
the only way to truly increase ratings is to collaborate with another soloist, dwayne carter who is so brilliant that he does not even get stars. next single: "a windmilli".