- Record Label: Domino
- Release Date: Feb 16, 2010
- Critic score
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Alternately inspired and frustrating, it addresses themes of lost love (and lost chicness) with Queen-size 70s-rock pomp, neoclassical interludes, and one ukulele-based chamber-pop song.
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But what comes through now is the strength of the songwriting, and his willingness to try out new things.
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There’s no filler here, even the short instrumental numbers deserve their place as they break up the album into chapters. A surprisingly good follow-up, Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You is essential listening.
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UncutHe couches this misery in beautiful arrangements, writing on the piano, orchestrating with strings, and pitching his ambition somewhere between Serge Gainsbourg and Todd Rundgren. [Feb 2010, p.90]
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Each track is certainly jam-packed with ideas, but they are woven tight and worked to perfection with the help of producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) who has clearly done a sterling job of making sense of Hynes’ ridiculously overactive imagination.
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And what the songwriter (he's recently written for Solange Knowles and X Factor's Diana Vickers) does – simple country-twinged, piano/guitar music – he does very well.
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A solid second record with tinges of brilliance, it’s another fine piece of work from the busiest man around.
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Life Is Sweet! veers so frequently from densely orchestrated to intimately raw and back again - often within the same tune - these little throwaway breaks tend to work as conveniently placed little palate cleansers.
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The flow of the album from shout-along to chilling ballad to piano etude and back again is uneven, but the lack of a conventional dynamic feels more candid and endearing than anything else.
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Devonté Hynes pens an indie-rock passion play that picks up the tempo and spotlights his thespian skills
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The songs here — Baroque, sometimes arch pop, touching on classic country, Bowie and Queen — begin with sharp-tongued bitterness and, slowly, with detours, work their way through to what for Mr. Hynes seems like an uncomfortable, foreign feeling: bliss.
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Although it is fairly obvious that he could perfect the country-sunshine-singed folk-pop of his debut almost effortlessly should he wish, Hynes has instead delivered a multi-faceted breakdown of his own hyperactive productivity.
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These are huge, Motown-sounding set pieces that frame Hynes as a male Dusty Springfield backed by symphonic strings, jangly guitars, and urgent, driving percussion.
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Flamboyant, excessive and more Mikado than Micachu, you get the feeling that 'Life Is Sweet...' is an album that'll polarise people. But hey - if you don't like this one, Dev will be onto the next project tomorrow anyway.
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Hynes continues to explore the scope of his musicianship, producing a collection songs that refuse to stand still.
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Life Is Sweet! is best at its brightest and fastest....Slower, more contemplative tunes like "Romart," on the other hand, can get a little dreary (even if they're very pretty).
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Under The RadarLife Is Sweet is a swooningly beautiful record that might just turn out to be Hynes' finest. [Winter 2010, p.68]