FineChina
When the World Sings
Tooth & Nail
1980’s pop music has become yet another category that indie music has embraced. And for a while, the best bands of the post-wave successfully fused jangle and discordant guitars with programmed drums, electronic blips, and Gary Numan/Ric Ocasek vocals. Satisfact took Duran Duran and wiped the make-up off their pretty boy faces. My Favorite has come closer to not only the sound, but most importantly, the spirit of the Smiths. FineChina is the Erasure, infused with girly-man vocals and all those terrible, terrible easily programmable beats. The keyboards – of course there are keyboards – are thin to the point of filler. This band is young, probably puts on good shows, and probably had good intentions. But intentions and substance are two separate issues, something that has been lost in FineChina’s translation.