Album Review | The Ting Tings – Sounds from Nowheresville

You might have heard of The Ting Tings, you've just never heard of The Ting Tings. In 2008, their single “Shut and Let Me Go” became one of those songs that appeared in iPod commercials, movies, television and even got the band a coveted gig on Saturday Night Live. It became one of those songs you'd hear at the mall, the grocery store, maybe that odd time you went to your local dollar store, and you kind of just knew it, but you never really asked who sung it.

Now in 2012, The Ting Tings – made up of duo Katie White and Jules de Martino – return with their second studio album Sounds from Nowheresville, an album that feels like a duplicate of something you've probably heard before, probably in 2009. Sounds is an album filled with songs that you might hear as the soundtrack of an edgy commercial from your local bank, songs that have enough of a generic framework to it that they could be used for just about anything. However, Sounds is also a record that doesn't settle for being just a copy cat. Instead, White and de Martino, not happy with just providing a lesser version of a better song you've heard before, also seem to make sure that no one will dare compare them to someone else if they make an album meant to induce internal bleeding.

There are moments when The Tings Tings' Sounds moves away from imitation to something that just seems like pure parody. Songs like “Give It Back” hint at a production that would make LCD Soundsystem fans gently bob their head, yet when the vocals start, White and de Martino seem to be evoking the sound of The Kills' Midnight Boom but miss all the spunk and genuine ferocity that made Boom a solid album. Here on Sounds, we get White and de Martino doing their best to sing with a snarl and instead just seem to be shrieking because someone – someone who clearly hates ears – told them that shrieking is “punk-rock.”

And that's the problem with Sounds. While White and de Martino might yell, scream and holler, they don't really seem to have any emotional motivation behind their songs, they don't really seem to believe their own message that they're trying to sell.

The yelling only continues with the atrocious speak-singing of “Guggenheim,” a song that tries to sell a broken hearted romance that even when White starts yelling the chorus, sounds more deadpan than anything else on the album. It's a disgusting mess that makes you grit your teeth and wonder, “girl, who let you believe this was good?”

And that's when you see it: that Jules de Martino – one half of The Ting Tings – produced the entire album himself. With Sounds, you get a sense that the band could've used an outsider's perspective. Clocking in at under thirty-five minutes, Sounds feels much longer than it really is, and only shows promise in a few places. Tracks like “Hit Me Down Sonny” feels remotely playful, White almost finding a balance in her vocals between spunky and screechy. The quasi ballad “Day to Day” also holds some potential. But even with these tracks, Sounds from Nowheresville is a telling name, and you almost wish these songs stayed in its fabricated place of origin. A place that feels desolate, dismal and sparse; yet a place that still feels more lively and spirited than this album.