Paper Aeroplanes
Album: Little Letters
Label: Navigator
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.paperaeroplanesmusic.com

I was surprised to discover that "Little Letters" is already Paper Aeroplanes 'notoriously difficult' third album. Surprised, not because the album sounds like it flowed from pen and guitar with a consummate ease, more because the duo, Sarah Howells & Richard Llwellyn, only came together in 2009. I guess playing in excess of a hundred gigs in a year really gives you the chance to explore and understand your songs before committing them to disk.

At the core of "Little Letters" is an emotional rollercoaster, riding on the tracks of love, one unrequited the other passionate and consuming, encountering the ups and downs of life. The title song is a reference to trying to get all that down to 140 letters to be shared across distance and cyberspace.

It does that by delivering vignettes in a catchy, folk tinged, pop style, that immediately makes you think of the likes of Bjork and Catatonia, the latter not just because of the inflection in the vocal, more because they were also a band that had a zest about their sound that also gave it a slightly bitter edge, the quinine in the tonic.

The pop sensibilities keep "Little Letters" from being a little too raw, too exposed. Whilst the likes of Kristin Hersh can pull off that level of openness and without a doubt Paper Aeroplanes are more than capable of doing that live and to an extent "Fable" on this album does just that, it does raise a level of uncomfortableness brought about by feeling like a voyeur.

"Little Letters" is the album of a band that is not only comfortable in their skin, but also unafraid to show their scars and blemishes because real life isn't airbrushed.

Neil King