Too bad ((audio)) breaks that promise, falling back on easy answers to questions that shouldn't have been asked in the first place. The pop band that the stripped-down one-two punch on Local Access Sessions revealed went back to hiding behind the rock band that Fixture just isn't--let's face it--original enough to be. And it's a shame, because there are exceptions: "After Venus" still shines here, and whenever the band shuts up for a second, it's not an uncomfortable silence. Of course, when the best song on your album is a cover--in this case, a fairly straightforward reading of Tears for Fears' "Shout"--it means your band needs to either a) start writing better songs or b) start covering worse ones. Fixture has a shot at the former; moments of adequacy and, occasionally, decency litter the 11 tracks on ((audio)). But unless singer-guitarist Dave Howell and the rest of his get-fresh crew figure out the chord changes to, say, a John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band tune, they won't stumble onto slimmer pickings than the Roland Orzabal/Curt Smith oeuvre.
Honestly, this isn't a bad effort at all, and Howell and the rest of the band--bassist Luke Dick, guitarist Bucky Cole, and drummer Chris Tyson--are certainly playing with a much lighter touch than they displayed on ultra=sound. Still, Cole and Howell do little more than play along with whatever happened to be on MTV at the time, and Howell doubles his karaoke winnings with his vocals, which actually belong to Gavin Rossdale. It's the kind of record that's meant to sound good on a radio, and yes, ((audio)) would be right at home among the coolrocksmartpop at the Merge. Maybe someday that will be a good thing.
