Beginning Stages Of... - The Polyphonic Spree

Before you listen to The Polyphonic Spree, all the signs have been universally bad. They call themselves a "choral symphonic rock" band who are run by a "musical director" called Tim, and they wear bright robes of different colours as they travel round the World - presumably in a series of VW Beetles painted all the colours of the rainbow - spreading their good word about how nice the sun is. Looking at the tracklisting for their debut album "The Beginning Stages Of The Polyphonic Spree" (a name which is of course another pre-emptive strike against them, the word 'day' appears seven times out of ten, and 'sun' appears on two. The only songs ...

"The Beginning Stages Of.." is (not altogether surprisingly) the first album by acclaimed indie-pop outfit The Polyphonic Spree, a ten-track ode to life, the sun and the daytime. In earlier reviews I've waxed lyrical about later efforts "The Fragile Army" and "Wait" - but is this, their debut, one any good? First, a quick background on the Polyphonic Spree for the uninitiated, quoted from my earlier review of their "Wait" EP: "Ranging from 24 to 29 members strong, and led by Flaming Lips frontman Tom DeLaughter, they combine sunny choral pop in the vein of the Beach Boys with a dense, symphonic Wall-of-Sound type ...