CD Review: 'The Odd Couple' by Gnarls Barkley

The first single from Gnarls Barkley’s first album, “St. Elsewhere,” seemingly came from nowhere. One minute, there was no “Crazy” and in the next the song was inescapable: It was on the radio, on TV, at Lollapalooza, at the Grammys.

No pressure, then, on the follow-up.

Yeah, right. The truth is, “The Odd Couple” is the most-watched sophomore album in a while, and there’s enough interest that Gnarls Barkley moved up the release date by three weeks, presumably to avoid leaks like the one that already loosed the first single, “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster).”

Where “Crazy” was a smooth, futuristic funk song, “Run” takes an old-school soul tack with bursts of brass punctuating busy double-speed percussion. The duo’s modern take on a classic sound runs throughout the new record, a worthy 13-song sophomore effort. It’s there in the big, round funk bass line of “Charity Case” and the ’60s folk-pop harmonies of “Surprise.” It permeates the late-night atmospherics of “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul,” a song Marvin Gaye would have loved, and floats in the sampled strings that scroll through the background of the turbulent “Open Book.”

“The Odd Couple” is not, however, a throwback record. Singer Cee-Lo Green takes stock of the human condition, often his own, with lyrics born of a dark and uncertain time in the national consciousness. He muses on the pull between selfless and selfish impulses, loneliness and, of course, love, and he freely admits not having many answers.

Green and producer/musician Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton are indeed an unusual team: The former is stocky and garrulous, while the latter is tall and reserved. Yet the name could also refer to the band’s discography: With two compelling records both alike and apart, “St. Elsewhere” and “The Odd Couple” make a strange pairing, too.

(Photo by Jeremy & Claire Weiss)

Comments

[Flannery]

I remember you told me to check out the song after I expressed disappointment at their "Gone, Daddy, Gone" cover and then two days later I heard it at Wood-n-Tap. Crazy. Literally.