Star Time
2003
Beat Beat Heartbeat
About This Album
On their debut, Beat Beat Heartbeat, the Natural History prove that they could be the poster boys for their label, Star Time Records: They find creative uses for their back-to-basics guitar, drums, and basslineup, and their songs are full of tough but sensitive melodies like their labelmates, the Walkmen and the French Kicks. However, Max Tepper's deep, raspy vocals and angular guitar hooks also make the Natural History sound a lot like Spoon, so much so that on the first few spins of Beat Beat Heartbeat, it's hard to shake the feeling that the album isn't actually a mislabeled collection of that band's demos; indeed, the slightly buried quality of Tepper's singing and the rough-around-the-edges production only emphasize the songs' somewhat unfinished feel. After a while, though, the Natural History's own personality reveals itself, and in many ways the band is even more orthodox in its late-'70s/early-'80s new wave and post-punk hero worship than its contemporaries -- "Watch This House" sounds even more like a song that Elvis Costello never got around to writing than anything off of Girls Can Tell, Kill the Moonlight, or One Time Bells does.
Track List (try tracks 2,3 and 7)

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