“Nothing’s easy when it’s wrong,” sings the Beangrowers’ Alison Galea on her band’s fourth album Not In A Million Lovers. She makes a good point, but being wrong has yielded thirteen winning new songs about all the ways love goes awry. From tales of obsession (“Untitled Forever”) to romantic resilience (“Love Can Do You No Harm”), Not In A Million Lovers makes the case that even when love is bound to jump the tracks it’s always worth the ride. Hailing from Malta, the Beangrowers may not come from a conventional indie rock locale, but they’ve done their homework, referencing everyone from Blondie (“Depths Of Bavaria”) to Belly (“Not In A Million Lovers”). Elsewhere, the dreamy pop of “Captain Darling” brings to mind the early work of the Cardigans, while the bass-driven “Like Ken” is a playful blast of sprightly new wave. But the piece de résistance here has to be the closer “Life’s A Bitch And Then She Sings In Your Band.” Building to a sweet boil, Galea sings with a loving bitterness of “stories with no end at all,” reasoning that “somehow this all makes sense.” In other words, the easiest thing about the stuff that’s wrong is making it sound so good.
--Alex Green [June 25, 2008]
