Cassette Review // Bridal Party "Too Much" (Factotum Cassettes & Oddities)

$10 CAD //
Edition of 100 //
https://factotumco.bandcamp.com/album/too-much //

The music of Bridal Party is not easily explained.   I've listened to this cassette a number of times now and every time I listen to it I seem to take something new out of it.    At first, I had this feeling of it being groovy, but ultimately it's rocking and a little tongue-in-cheek.

Influences come in the way of Corinne Bailey Rae, Dionne Warwick and that Alice Cohen & The Channel 14 Weather Team album that came out earlier this year.    Blissed out and beautiful it sometimes reminds me of Flaming Lips and other times can feel like something from Simon Hanes.

This feels strongly like something from the 1960's or even 1970's though.   Even though I wasn't alive at the time, my parents were and it was their love of music such as this which carried on during the 1980's.   I remember living in a two family house with grandma and uncle downstairs.   They would babysit my sisters and I while my parents went to the rollerdisco (my father had this yellow shirt as such) where I assume this type of music was played.

Bridal Party has a sound that might seem familiar but it isn't.   At times I think this has that television feel of a show like "Love Boat" or "Charlie's Angels", as is it definitely can have that 1970's spy thing going on for it.   But it just seems to be on the edge of these certain rock genres without falling into any of them specifically.

Lyrically these songs are about different topics but the words don't always seem to match the tone of the music.  It's more of an upbeat, lighter feel musically whereas the lyrics touch upon more serious subjects.   "Too Much" has suggestions of body image while "When I'm Naked" is more obvious in the title but still feels rather innocent in other aspects.   "Attention" is about wanting attention- in the sense of what I would crudely refer to as an attention whore- and "Speak Easy" sets the mood for this entire cassette as I could imagine Bridal Party existing during the time of prohibition.