Your Secret Safe/Luzerne

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (18 ratings)
Your Secret Safe/Luzerne album cover
Album Information

Total Tracks: 22   Total Length: 83:21

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An all-time emu highlight

timabouttown

"I've been listening to them for a few years, and this is where they hit their stride. Now, they're running and jumping. "I Call on You" might be my favorite 2007 track at emu. I generally prefer the uptempo tracks (and therefore recommend the first disk here), but "Can You Find a Way Down" is a gorgeous ballad. "Our Love Is" exactly as it should be, including the loud parts. Listen to "Jean Jacket" and tell me you've heard a prettier and more compelling chiming guitar since The Byrds, and I'll tell you you're wrong. The guitars here are sharper and more psychedelic here, too. I'm as surprised as you are. BTW, any doubt that something this classic-sounding is alt should note that I first heard them on 120 Minutes (instant indie cred)...and then try to find anything that sounds like this even on alt-indie radio.

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2 stars is charitable

Diquehead

"Reading" is the only thing worth a second listen (out of 22 tracks?!)

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They Say All Music Guide

Two-CD sets by indie pop bands weren’t common fare in 2007, but that’s what Trollyvox offer on Your Secret Safe/Luzerne. While neither of the two discs are ballyhooed more than the other in the packaging, it’s likely that the one titled Your Secret Safe is the one into which they poured their primary energy, as the disc titled Luzerne is wholly acoustic and partially instrumental. Your Secret Safe, in contrast, boasts full-band arrangements, offering guitar pop featuring Beth Filla’s coolly haunting lead vocals. While not the most remarkable or brilliant of sounds, the band’s combination of moody and meditative words and melody with fairly aggressive, guitar-driven backing is reasonably engaging. A few of the tracks, like “I Call on You” and “Reading,” are a bit like hearing the Who with a more contemporary indie pop bent and a female vocalist, and in fact, the Who’s “Our Love Was” is the only cover of the set. Other songs admit other influences into their approach, like ringing 12-string power pop on “Jean Jacket,” though even that song has instrumental breaks with highly Pete Townshend-esque power chords. The other disc on this release, Luzerne, is not Your Secret Safe unplugged. It has entirely different songs, though the only instrumentation is provided by Trollyvox songwriter Andrew Chalfen (mostly on acoustic guitar) and Eve Miller (on occasional cello), and five of the twelve tracks are instrumental. In keeping with the format, these are gentler and folkier tunes, more Nick Drake than Pete Townshend, though they’re less memorable than those on the Luzerne CD. There’s a penetrating opening lyric of “Intermission,” though, with more anguish than is apparent from the musical tone of the cut: “She found her broken heart in mint condition in the Japanese rent-a-car.” – Richie Unterberger

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