Sugarcubes
Stick Around for Joy (Elektra) (STAR) 1/2
Icelandic quintet the Sugarcubes are a novelty act quickly becoming the aural equivalent of the Cabbage Patch doll. For the band`s lack of re-invention, its third album, ”Stick Around for Joy,” stutters. Bjork Gudmundsottir throaty trills can be delightfully exotic, but her childish fascination with the English language (on the tune ”Chihuahua,” in which she drags out the ”wowowowow”) seems like a cheap device. Einar Orn Benediktson`s grating evil-dwarf rap-along shtick rips through promising songs like ”Walkabout.” The band`s preoccupation with juxtaposing naivete and sexual images is a strange and tiresome fetish; it pairs childlike wordplay and Gudmundsottir pixie style with jarring song titles like ”Hetero Scum”
and cover art with cartoonish depictions of sperm in chase of the egg. If only their music were so fertile.
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