Review: Milo Greene – Milo Greene

Milo Greene’s debut self-titled album is incredibly easy to get lost in and perfect for a winter journey, as Robbie Arnett, Graham Fink, Andrew Heringer and Marlana Sheetz share vocal duties, whilst Curtis Marrero lays down the percussion.

As you’ve just read, none of the band are called Milo Greene. The name comes from the phantom booking agent the band conjured up in their early years, he has a whole personality and everything. “He’s British. He wears a three-piece-suit. He wears a monocle. He’s albino. He has chops, sideburns. He’s confident, charming, well-read, well-spoken. He’s a gentlemen, the kind of guy we all aspire to be.”

Milo Greene the album, as a whole sounds like the calmer older brother to Of Monsters and Men’s My Head Is An Animal, the male and female vocals on ‘Don’t You Give Up On Me’ being the best evidence of this. Milo Greene has a more grown up slant on this though, such as ‘Perfectly Aligned’ being a masked love song. The track starts with the brilliant harmonies of Arnett, Fink, Heringer and Sheetz followed by twinkly guitar and keys.

The guitar drops back to reveal spares drums and simple but effective bass. Crescendos are the key to this track, the first chorus of “Everything is…. Perfectly aligned” builds to a fuzz peak that is pulled back from the brink and into the reverb drenched vocals again. The track finally goes into full swing at the end and drifts to a satisfying ring out fade.

‘Cutty Love’, the great tenth track on the album is an acoustic guitar and piano lead song, with great lyrics. This track has an air of devotion to it with line like “Even if your heart stops, I’ll be there to hold you up”. Again the harmonies are brilliant and Milo Greene knows this, using them to devastating effect for the chorus.

Milo Greene is a great indie-folk pop album, but there is nothing new here. Great harmonies and dynamics help the songs come to life, but they become repetitive very fast.