- Record Label: Locust
- Release Date: Jan 22, 2008
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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What The Portrait Is Finished… evokes is a sense just like that of its inventive title: an ultimately unsatisfying portrait that fails to capture beauty, even though it's clear that true beauty is there to be captured.
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Under The RadarThe romantically intertwined duo make easy listening music that is neither challenging to listeners nor especially objectional. [Spring 2008, p.83]
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Fuzztone guitar and the occasional woodwinds dress up the many slow-paced songs, but repetitive, fragmentary compositions such as 'Paquita Reads by Candlelight,' Vancouver-repping 'Skeleton Aim,' and the typically moribund 'Come Darkness' sound more concerned with melisma than memorable melodies or vibrant production.
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Together, they craft lilting, light-hearted art-folk that recalls something akin to Joni Mitchell sitting in with '80s British popsters Prefab Sprout at best, or some Renaissance Faire troubadour's best attempt at improv at its most mediocre.
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Bejar's warm, odd voice does not jibe well with the voice of the former Toronto Children's Choir singer.
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This is a solid set of songs that’s mannered and restrained to a fault.
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These few songs ['Heron Song' and 'Shadow Falls'] are genuine highlights amidst a sea of generic acoustic balladry, a project that would make a great EP but--as a full-length--runs out of steam at a truly remarkable pace.
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Bejar wanders in and out with backing vocals and extended guitar lines, but the overall feeling is of two artists taking a little time out for themselves.