The cover of the Low Millions' debut album, "Ex-Girlfriends," shows a bikini-clad woman gracefully diving headlong into oblivion.
The image represents the infamous ex-girlfriend paradox - the desire to erase the memory of an ex from one's life and the inability to do so. It is the theme in all 11 songs in this "ex-inspired" album.
The pop-rock band puts lead singer Adam Cohen, son of Leonard Cohen, and his palette of ranging vocals in the foreground of each track. His chords are similar to those of Our Lady Peace's Raine Maeda in that he's capable of triumphantly pulling off the likable high-pitched squeak.
The rest of the band composes simple but effective melodies that give the album a laid back, mellow resonance. Not once is a solo, or a complicated instrumental sequence featured in the album. Instead, the band's principal purpose is to prop Cohen.
The tracks' titles, "Eleanor," "Julia," "Hey Jane" and "Nikki," make the subject matter of the album pretty obvious. In fact, all 11 tracks deal with lost love and its melancholic reverberations.
The title track is the creative apex of the album featuring more diverse lyrics and a little-catchier tune.
Cohen sings, "Just one of the low millions/ I'm alien in my own skin/ I'm fishing where the ice is thin/ I'm holding it up with safety pins/ I'm sitting on nitroglycerine."
The Low Millions can pat themselves on the back for attempting to give their album a variance in tone and mood, but it's all rehashed. Any flow of uniqueness or originality was damned so that it wouldn't alienate potential fans with anything "too experimental."
Consequently, we're left with 11 songs about lost love. Those in the mood to wallow in memories of a ruined relationship: "Ex-Girlfriends" may be for you.
