music monday: she & him, "volume two"

I want to be Zooey Deschanel! She's strangely beautiful, she can act, she can write songs, she can sing, and she's just...interesting! She completely breaks the mold for what one reviewer called the "actor-turned-singer-turned-punchline" phenomenon.

Zooey Deschanel (she) and M. Ward (him) released their second album last week, and it's a step above their first album. Whatever the first album gave us, the second album gives us more. Imagine the kind of music you might hear playing in the background in a movie where Zooey is wearing a frilly dress on a sunny day, sitting in the passenger seat of a car with her feet out the window on a long road trip. That's the kind of music this is!

I especially like "Don't Look Back," "Thieves" and the ethereal lullabye "If You Can't Sleep."

I think these guys describe the album much better:

"The duo's impeccably assembled retro pop is unmistakably regional, with puckish hooks and reverb-heavy production that recall California dreamers like the Mamas and the Papas...It's the sunniest sad record you'll hear all year."
- Rolling Stone 

"[Ward] dresses her songs in deceptively simple SoCal folk rock, dusty cowboy-trail country music, and crisp Brill Building pop."
- Pitchfork

Check them out!

MySpace
Buy the MP3 album for $7.99 on Amazon