Record Review: Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

Rating: 4.9 / 10.0

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

I got really excited a few weeks ago when I heard "Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)" the lead single from Gnarls Barkley's sophomore effort The Odd Couple. I remember thinking that if that song was in any way a portent of what was to come on the record, then Gnarls Barkley would succeed in proving that they had more than just a novelty. What made that song, and St. Elsewhere for that matter, so great were the adventurous arrangements. They got your ears working and kept your foot tapping, brilliantly walking the line between catchy and edgy. The sound "Run" had was thick, with a multi-layered mix supported by a strong beat.

The Odd Couple is neither as catchy nor as edgy as is predecessor or its lead single. Very few of the songs on this record have the sort of get-up=and-go that was found on every track of St. Elsewhere. While I was never bored listening to Gnarls's debut, I found myself waiting for a lot of the songs on The Odd Couple to end.

Some songs are flat out boring ("Who's Gonna Save My Soul"), some songs have atrocious beats (try tapping your feet to "Open Book"), and others have weak or weird arrangements ("Would Be Killer"). Cee-Lo puts forth another exceptional vocal performance (with the exception of his grating, nasal, frankly godawful performance on "Whatever"); he's probably the strongest suit on this record. He picks up the slack created by the weak production as best he can, but often times, his vocals are left to fend from themselves in the midst of a mix that is sometimes too cluttered and sometimes too bare.

The songwriting suffers considerably on this effort too. St. Elsewhere was full of unforgettable vocal hooks and stunning harmonies. The same cannot be said of The Odd Couple. On "No Time Soon", Danger Mouse tries to throw laser noises and a weak lead guitar line into the mix to cover up a song that is without a hook or a beat to latch onto. "Blind Mary" is another example of a song that sounds like the product of laziness - the harmonies are few and uninspiring, and there is no real melodic arc to speak of.

Don't get me wrong, this record is not a total disaster. "Going On" is a great track, probably a standout. Here, the familiar thickness in Gnarls's sound comes through in spades, with a simple but catchy beat anchoring down an arrangement with all the swells, ebbs, and flows, that made "Crazy" so compelling. "Surprise" is another good tune - with a sparse, guitar-based verse leading into a wonderful, hand-clapping, harmony-laden chorus. "Neighbour" isn't bad either, with a warm, full, attention-grabbing arrangement, and a vocal performance from Cee-Lo that will give you shivers.

The feeling I get here is that the record was rushed (ironic that the release date was pushed up). It doesn't feel as well thought-out as St. Elsewhere, in fact, it makes many of the mistakes that St. Elsewhere so skillfully and surprisingly avoided. The quality of the record is derived from one member (which makes the album's title ironic; God, these guys just love the unintentional, unfortunate, and borderline infuriating twists of irony, don't they?). I guess you could say that The Odd Couple is what St. Elsewhere should have been: a cut-corners, hit-and-miss effort, a couple of singles with lots of filler. If I had never heard St. Elsewhere, I might have liked The Odd Couple more. I mean, maybe.

-PTC