Thao-- We Brave Bee Stings And All

Your soundtrack for the summer actually arrived in the dead of winter. Thao's "We Brave Bee Stings And All" indeed will soothe you, like a lick of ice cream.

The highlight is "Bag Of Hammers," a song set to please hipsters and hippies alike. The track opens with a breezy guitar riff and a relationship gone awry: "The trick is you do not get on that interstate bus / The catch is you stay and see what becomes of us." Then a pause, and an explosion: "Shake, shake, shake, shake the frame of this house / Distress the wood, make it shout." If your not shuffling your feet at this point, then you might as well have skipped town on that bus.

Most of "Bee Stings" follows suit, with a light, happy fare
constructed to sugarcoat darker themes.

Beneath the upbeat pace and tickling banjo of "Swimming Pools" lies a lesson: "We don't dive, we cannonball / And we splash our eyes full of chemicals / Just so there's none left for little girls."

"Did he hurt you in a new way?" Thao asks in "Fear And Convenience."

Although the second half of "Bee Stings" can't stack up to the
momentum built early - the songs are by no means bad; they're just not as thoroughly enjoyable - Thao (full name: Thao Nguyen), backed by the Get Down Stay Down, shows great promise while having great fun.