Today, we're in Australia for one more day (though this post was very nearly about a song I absolutely adore from Sweden--that'll be soon, though). If you're actually from Australia, I apologize, because I get the impression that this group's songs (or at least one or two of them) may have been overplayed at one time. The group in question is Invertigo, a four person band (three brothers--some of whom were previously in Australian band Pseudo Echo--and the lead singer), who released their one and only album, Forum, in 2001. They released three actual singles off of it, as well as sent a fourth song to radio. The last I know of them, they went to the U.S. in hopes of making in big there; I'm not sure if they ever even released a single there, though there is a U.S. mix of one of their songs. I think the most publicity they ever maybe got (and keep in mind, I wasn't paying attention at the time, so feel free to correct me if anyone knows differently) was getting a song on the soundtrack to America's Sweethearts; the release of their album in the U.S. just kept getting pushed back. In 2003, their lead singer, Christian Argenti, left the group. I'm not sure what all the members are doing now, though I do know that Christian did some of the singing for the satirical Australian movie Boytown (about what would happen if the greatest boy band of the '80's got back together), but I won't hold that against him--I'm just glad he's getting work.Forum was produced by Charles Fisher, who worked on most of Savage Garden's debut album. For someone like me, obsessed with poppiness and catchiness, for some reason only a few of the tracks on the album jumped out at first listen--it's a problem I often have with this sort of music, which probably falls into whatever subgenre of pop BBMak fall into (as a side note, I don't think Invertigo were generally referred to as a boy band, but you can't tell me these songs don't have a boy band-reminiscent element to them, especially if you're going to view BBMak as a boy band. Heck, one of their songs, "Slave," even has lyrics that sound ripped straight out of a Phixx song! Though Invertigo do predate Phixx). However, repeated listenings were extremely rewarding and revealed a flat-out great album. I could honestly post any of the eleven tracks from this album, and that's something I can very rarely say; I don't even know that I'd say that about the Click Five's album, which I absolutely love (Greetings From Imrie House is still a better album, though). That might lead you to wonder why I'm only posting one song today--the truth is, if I tried to choose any more than that, I wouldn't be able to stop.
Desensitized--the album's lead single. The chorus is great--catchy and full-sounding (two adjectives that could be used to describe the whole song, and much of the album), especially distinctive because of the moments Christian breaks into higher notes. All right, perhaps the lyrics are sort of cheesy, but no worse than a lot of the songs I love.
And, just because I can, here's the video for their second single, "Chances Are," the only video of theirs YouTube has. The video isn't particularly special, but they were just such a great band that I couldn't resist posting it.
In case you hadn't guessed, I very much recommend buying the album, especially if you like this song or this style. Not even Sanity sells it directly anymore, but you can get it from some marketplace sellers on Amazon, or keep an eye on eBay for it.
Next up: probably a song from the UK, but possibly a Swedish singer.
