Pentatonix, āThe Lucky Onesā (RCA Records)
There's a new Pentatonix album, which leads to the question, āDidn't we already have Christmas?ā And the answer: Yes, this isn't a Christmas set, despite the huge snowball on the album's cover.
āThe Lucky Onesā marks the groupās first full-length original album in six years. Itās extremely well produced, veering more to mainstream, radio-friendly pop than their self-titled debut album. It shows a maturing sound independent of Christmas and popular covers of such songs as āJoleneā and āImagine.ā
Members of the five-piece group ā Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee ā have a songwriting hand in every tune. Matthew Koma, who has worked with Zedd, helps write the majority of tunes.
Unfortunately, theyāve picked one of the weakest songs to kick off the album ā the vapid single āBe My Eyes" ā which has a skeleton of an Enya tune and a grating chorus. It sounds dated and dusty.
Much better are āA Little Space,ā "Coffee in Bed" and āSide,ā which could all be on a Justin Bieber album. āHappy Nowā is exuberant fun and the title track is super, when the five voices thrillingly meld.
The album has many textures, from the intimate āIt's Different Nowā to the soaring, arena-ready āLove Me When I Don'tā and āNever Gonna Cry Again.ā Itās also nice to hear Maldonado increasingly take lead vocal duties.
One interesting thing about Pentatonix this time out is an increased distancing from what made them famous: that choral of a cappella voices, what they cheekily on āBoredā boast of being as āso in synch you'd think we were psychic.ā
Much of āThe Lucky Onesā follows a formula with a single dominant voice as a backbone and the five only combining softly in choruses, a big finish or in bridges. It's fine, often excellent ā just maybe not what you might expect from a Pentatonix album.
Think of it like a nice post-Christmas present.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
