The Black Watch, led by the band’s lone constant member John Andrew Frederick, could easily be mistaken for yet another British post-punk band swept up in the musical wave that brought over everyone from the Cure and The Psychedelic Furs to the Smiths. But Frederick’s faux-Brit vocals aside, the group is actually from Santa Barbara, CA. It’s odd that he would chose this obvious affectation, as the result is more annoyance than appeal.
If you can get over the vocals–and that’s a big ‘if’–the band plays a somewhat decent version of ‘80s British dream pop that has garnered them plenty of fans among music critics. “Witches!,” the band’s 16th record, is far from their strongest effort to date. Coming less than a year after the band’s last LP, there is a sense that many of the tracks here simply didn’t fit on the last album. There is little that ties the songs together. For every solid pop number like “Georgette Georgette,” there are three more throw-away tracks.
Much like a Wes Anderson movie, there seems to be a collective assumption by critics that Black Watch albums simply get a thumbs up just for existing. If that’s the case, I’ll just sit on my hands.
