Tennis—Young and Old

“It All Feels the Same,” the first track off of Tennis’ sophomore album, Young and Old, displays a remarkable sense of clairvoyance in its title. The following songs fail to distinguish themselves and instead create a steady stream of lo-fi pop with delightful instrumentals and charming lyrics. If you had to describe Tennis’ music in a word, it’d be cute. Really, really, cute.

How cute? Vocalist Alaina Moore’s voice ranges from the sunny, retro sounds of Beach Boys-inspired surf rock to the aural equivalent of Zooey Deschanel’s bangs. In addition to their music, which I imagine would be arranged over a Gidget-Moondoggie “through the years” montage, the husband and wife team also have an equally fairytale-for-the-modern-hipster backstory that inspired their first album, 2011’s Cape Dory. After Moore and guitarist Patrick Riley met in a philosophy class at the University of Colorado-Denver, the duo married and shortly thereafter embarked on an eight-month sailing trip along the Eastern coast and recorded the album to chronicle their experience. The experience gave that album anchor around which the breezy songs revolved, something that is absent from Young and Old.

The new LP was produced, surprisingly enough, by Patrick Carney, whose work with the Black Keys is about as cute as he is. But the production works to Tennis’ advantage—both bands are grounded in a retro sensibility that makes the collaboration fitting and even beneficial on some tracks. The song “Origins” is an early high point, complementing Moore’s airy voice with a jangly piano and ’60s-era backing vocals. “Petition” is another piano-driven standout that alternates between Moore’s fuzzy lower register and higher warbles.

But a lot of Young and Old gets lost in the barrage of upbeat, conventional indie-pop tempos. The album-length wave of cheerfulness never fully crests; Young and Old doesn’t work beyond a superficial level. For a couple that’s been alone at sea for nearly a year, you’d think that an appreciation of a relationship’s ups and downs would be reflected in their arrangements.

The other songs on the album are not offensive in their sameness, because Young and Old is clearly a sincere effort by a married couple who freely admit that their musical career started out as a hobby. But Tennis, in their overwhelming earnestness, manufacture a mood of insane happiness that’s as saccharine as anything in Hallmark’s Valentine’s Day cards.

—Katie Zaborsky