Heave Media

Papercuts Proves You Can't Always Have What You Want

This dream pop offering might fail to keep listeners interested or awake

Papercuts

You Can Have What You Want

Released on Apr 14, 2009

Papercuts is the rather painful moniker that Jason Quever chooses to operate under. Truly, unless there’s some touching story behind this band name, I’m perplexed as to why someone would choose a name that conjures up such excruciating thoughts. Perhaps the name is rather fitting, though—paper cuts aren’t going to kill you, but they’re quite annoying to deal with. Papercuts—of the musical variety—won’t make you want to rip your ears off, but after about three tracks, you’ll want to stagger away in a trance and leave your headphones behind.

A little harsh? Yes. But this revisit to the shoegaze-y “dream pop” aesthetic is becoming horribly redundant. Much like Afropop was the genre of ’08, thanks to Vampire Weekend, reinterpretations of hypnotic melodies with a nod to the ‘90s are becoming the sound of ’09. It’s not the feel of this sound that bothers me. I think some bands—like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart—excel at crafting unique songs using this same blueprint. Unfortunately, You Can Have What You Want just comes across as tired. There’s no real variety, and while I applaud Quever for his all-analog production technique, that doesn’t make up for his lack of songwriting ingenuity.

It is difficult to pick a standout track—good or bad—when they all sound the same, but “The Wolf” is one of the better tracks of this album. I’m an absolute sucker for the organ sound, and it provides both a sense of calm and a way to ground his soaring vocals. A word about his voice—I appreciate a good vocal strain every now and then. Not being quite able to reach a note communicates a longing tone in the song that doesn’t come across as well with straight lyrics. However, Quever doesn’t really seem to reach any of his notes. His soaring tones literally fall flat, and it’s not pleasant to listen to.

“Dead Love” sounds promising at the start, with a more exuberant organ than listeners are used to on the album. It almost sounds like a Mates of State track, until he starts moaning along with it, and it becomes nearly identical to the rest of the album. As a result, what could be an entertaining track is mediocre at best.

The instrumentation is decent enough to redeem the album slightly, but I just don’t like Quever’s voice. It’s a completely subjective thing, but unfortunately, it colored my experience for the worse. I couldn’t help but want him to stretch the boundaries of the dream pop genre. Instead, he seems comfortable to let sleeping dogs lie, and produce a disappointing album in the meantime.

Posted by Alyssa Vincent on Mar 17, 2009 @ 6:00 am