
As aching accordions and Moulin Rouge heartbreak strings arise from the opening seconds of Be Calm, all preconceptions leap into the Hudson, without a single lingering preoccupation of Panic!'s premature demise. More theatrical than most Broadway productions, Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format's high octane elasticised vocals flicker between disparagingly obnoxious and devastatingly serene, owing more than a falsetto flail to Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan. All The Pretty Girls makes Mika's kaleidoscopic paint-by-numbers daydream pop sound like Joni Mitchell, At Least I'm Not As Sad (As I Used To Be) weds steel drums with a pseudo-calypso chorus about as genuine as Pete Burns' lavish lips and Walking The Dog recalls the college rock tendencies of Wheatus' cheapest shots rattling along to We Are Scientists' tremolo trickery. Yet what with daytime mainstream music exposure sailing down the mutually exclusive slurry chutes of emo pop (You Me At Six, Paramore, Boys Like Girls) and date rape R'n'B (Tinie Tempah, Iyaz, N-Dubz), pop's in need of a little revelation and whilst fun. may not make many waves beyond the lands of ranked iTunes downloads bought by baying prepubescents, Lloyd Webber would almost certainly be up for a collaborative effort...
