Unabashed biters. I’ve always favored them. From Vanilla Ice to Nick Lowe to Jens Lekman, they see this big burger of melodies from the past and they just take that chomp. They do it from love and admiration: Lowe is quoted in the liner notes for his recently re-issued “Jesus Of Cool” as saying “I felt…’I'm a fan, I’ll write songs about pop music.’ I thought I would comment on it, steal a bit here and there and if anyone pulls me up, I’ll say ‘sure…’ It was a sort of forerunner to sampling.”

On “Volume One,” the way retro album from She & Him, M. Ward has constructed a cozy nest from pop songs of the 60′s and early 70′s for Zooey Deschanel’s multi-layered vocals. When she’s crooney and sings like Patsy Cline, he makes like Norman Granz and fills the room with strings. When she’s her own set of backup singers, he breaks out the big beat just so you know where you’re at. “This Is Not A Test” uses the most wonderful biter song of all time, George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” and returns it to it’s more modest girl group origins, but not before doing a melodic and instrumental retread of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May.”

Guess what? It works. She possesses a voice you can’t help but sympathize with (see “Sentimental Heart”) and he’s used every trick he’s picked up on his two excellent recent albums “Transistor Radio” and “Post War” to fill the space with warmth. I think it’s fair to compare She & Him to a pair of lovebirds who’ve just moved into their new digs. The album plays like the happy-home montage–cake on faces, Formica glistening–that you might see in a biopic about a real live, up-and-coming group from the past and not just the people who play them on indie rock. Not that you have to screw your eyes up real tight to imagine the tone that this album tries to evoke. “Volume One” plays magnificently in my kitchen and will for many rounds of dishes to come.

She & Him – This Is Not A Test mp3

She & Him – Sentimental Heart mp3

buy She & Him Volume One