The Baldwin Brothers — Cooking With Lasers

Cooking With Lasers

TVT/Universal

Darrin Keene (CHARTattack)

04/16/2002 1:03pm

The Baldwin Brothers are thankfully not another outfit of film stars slumming it on the rock scene. That said, the turntables-and-samplers jam band doesn't really overwhelm with their multi-genre mash-ups. The band are seemingly stuck in the '70s, alluding to TV staples like Sanford And Son ("Funky Junkyard") and the Six Million Dollar Man ("The Bionic Jam"). The funky breakbeats, jazzy Fender Rhodes, trippy Moogs and kitschy song titles like "Viva Kneivel" and "Are You There Margaret, It's Me God" all reinforce the me-decade theme. Problem is, The Baldwin Brothers play and compose with the plastic conviction of an episode of That '70s Show. Endlessly looped aural snippets from the technicolour dustbin of recent history don't make for an enticing listening experience. Guest vocalists Angie Hart (Frenté!), Geri Soriano-Lightwood (Supreme Beings Of Leisure), Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) and hip-hop MC Barron Ricks merely blend their voices into the beat-laden aural wallpaper. Eyelids are getting heavy... must change CD...

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