Josh Rouse

She's Spanish, I'm American EP

(Bedroom Classics / Nettwerk)

Record Review by Amber Henson

First of all, I fell in love with this album title far before I heard their music, so I turned out to be very lucky that the EP is as cutely lovable as its title.  For this side project, Josh Rouse teams up with Paz Suay, who contributed to his last album, Subtitulo.  Together, they make something that sounds delightfully spontaneous and professionally produced all at once.

The five-track EP starts with “Car Crash,” which Rouse and Suay sing together.  It’s about not wanting to die in a New York City cab—anyone who’s ever taken a NYC cab…hell, anyone who’s ever taken a cab can relate.  So the album begins with Rouse and Suay saying “Hey, come with us, we know you.”  So you go.  And it’s fun.  Although I don’t know why everyone is so gung-ho about the intro to the Stone Roses’ “Fools Gold,” because once again the intro to these two songs sound extraordinarily similar—just mismatched drumbeats separate the two.

Anywho, “Jon Jon” is next and it starts out sounding like a video game from the mid-nineties.  Then Suay starts, and this is her song; Rouse is not heard (vocally).  This gives us an opportunity to really hear her voice, which is mew-y and cute.  She’s on her own again on “The Ocean Always Wins,” a story with a timeline.  “The ocean always wins my love” or “The ocean always wins, my love?”  I suppose I could take the cue from the title, but I like to think it’s more ambiguous and difficult to decipher without the punctuation.

Okay, with that out of my system, we still have “These Long Summer Days,” and “Answers” to go.  The former starts with just Rouse, and contains the lyrics, “I’m sick of all this jive talking.”  ‘Nuf said.  The latter has a fast-paced Radiohead feel to it, his voice high and her voice low.  It finishes the EP with a synth-heavy beat and an upbeat feel.