By Josh Hughes
Spencer Goll, frontman of My Cartoon Heart, writes music that is quite accessible on first listen. That is integral to the band’s characteristic sound. After all, it only feels right that a band named My Cartoon Heart should share some lineage between equally vibrant bands like Passion Pit and Hot Chip. With bouncing synths, hyper-melodic vocals and over-the-top production, Goll creates an image and sound that poses him as a heart-on-sleeve frontman popstar. This coming week at the Underground Coffeehouse, My Cartoon Heart will perform an hour of peppy electronica.
“That Was Then (This Is Now),” (TWTTIN) the band’s latest album, which came out last spring, bounces all across the map, coming back to EDM-influenced dance floor jams. Goll’s vocals sound professional and annunciated in a similar vein to Owl City and the seven piece band sounds equally fine-tuned, both in terms of production and musicianship. Four-on-the-floor beats give way to sweeping, grand choruses, and songs like “Tonight” sound more like a Tiesto remix than anything else.
On first listen it can be hard to discern the different instruments at play, but the band explores pianos, strings and banjo, to name a few. This adds to the breadth of their LP; some songs sound like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, some sound like a take on Hot Chip and others explore everything in between.
While nearly every song follows a simple verse/chorus structure, Goll’s voice lends itself well to this pop template, and he seems to fully embrace it on TWTTIN. A Seattle-based outfit, My Cartoon Heart seem to be shaping themselves in a niche sound that has yet to be completely explored in the area, so Goll and company still have good breathing room to grow as a band. They share some of the pop sensibilities as The Postal Service, an electronic staple of the PNW, but My Cartoon Heart seems to be paving their way as a full-on pop band, without the alternative influences that Ben Gibbard brought to The Postal Service.
The colorful sound that My Cartoon Heart creates in all their music gives them a propulsive energy, one that seems to translate well to a live setting. With Annie Jantzer singing accompanying vocals and Will Gearhart playing piano, expect a fine tuned performance of songs from the band’s most recent album, as well as older and possibly newer material. Their set will last an hour in the Underground Coffeehouse on Wednesday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m.
