| Lord of the Dance spinoff gone comically wrong or the next Spice Girls - and they're all Sporty? B*Witched is a bit of both. In stores Tuesday, the debut album from this quartet of giddy Irish lasses exudes charm like syrup at the world's busiest candy floss stand. If anything could be called "ear candy," this is it. This album is an aural sugar rush. Their voices are marred by an airy affectation of sensuality - this is no surprise - but it's impossible to resist the clever songcraft and instantly enticing production. It results in a brain-numbing barrage of slick pop confections riddled with suggestive, boy-crazy sentiments and enough Celtic fiddle-dee-dee to give it a distinctive Irish flavour. Edele, Keavy, Sinead and Lindsay set the stage with Let's Go (the B*Witched Jig), featuring a flurry of furious fiddling over a machine-generated techno drive. It's a wake-up call, at the very least. B*Witched is clearly groomed for the same target market the Spice Girls dominated, but whether it's totally contrived or not scarcely matters. There are enough sugar-coated gems to outweigh the more horribly cloying moments. Highlights include the compelling C'est La Vie (despite this sample lyric: "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."), the pleasant closing ballad Oh Mr. Postman and Blame It on the Weatherman, one of the most melodically interesting songs on the album. The latter is followed, however, by an awful anthem called We Four Girls, a laughable mess of spoken word and singing that resembles that of shrieking harpies. It's dreadful. At least there's no Irish step-dancing - yet. |