Dean & Britta - "Back Numbers"

If Lou Reed had his testicles ripped off and subsequently made a sugary album with supermodel/siren/singer Nico, it would probably sound a lot like Dean and Britta’s debut album, “Back Numbers.”

In “Back Numbers,” the married couple, formerly of the indie-rock band Luna, step away from their well-respected place in the music industry to explore a folksy, Mitch and Mickey sound. M. Dean Wareham ’85, who’s billed in the accompanying press material as “an architect of despair,” comes across as more of a lovesick crooner, flatly singing “Honey I miss you now / Baby I miss you now.”

“Singer Sing,” the first track of the album, is deceptively good, featuring Britta Phillips’ throaty, intriguing vocals over a funky background and some nice guitar work by Wareham. However, the second song, “Words You Used To Say,” is marked by a distracting, spacey-sounding arpeggiated synthesizer harmony, which completely obliterates any other potentially interesting facet of the track.

The following two songs–“Wait for Me” and “You Turned My Head Around”–are the last tracks on the album worth listening to. “Wait for Me” is a serene track with accompaniment well suited to Phillips’ soothing vocals. While lyrically stunted, it provides ample learning opportunities.

For example, I never knew oatmeal cookies could make anyone–save for the allergic or anorexic–cry, but Phillips sings that they bring tears to her eyes. The chanteuse dominates “You Turned My Head Around,” with Wareham appearing on the chorus and adding some admirable guitar work, which provide the last glimpses of his former glory on this album.

From here, things go downhill pretty rapidly. There is a eulogy for a friend’s dead bunny rabbit (“Crystal Blue R.I.P.”), and a tooth-rot inducing, schmaltzy ballad, which was formerly the theme song for a children’s television show of the same name (“White Horses”). While not wholly disagreeable, the rest of the album is lyrically bland and somewhat sappy.

Much of what makes this album so disappointing is the past history of these artists. Dean Wareham was one of the founding members of Galaxie 500, a band acclaimed for their enchanting and experimental instrumentals. And Luna was a long-running, immensely popular indie band, and rightly so.

But Wareham’s experimental touch seems to have gone in the wrong direction on “Back Numbers.” The material is a far cry from what the masterful guitarist and lyricist is capable of, instead taking on the cotton candy feel of simple, light, lovey songs that fail to impress. Oddly enough, the newly-wedded couple rarely sings together on the album, but that doesn’t prevent their mushy sentiments from bastardizing what could have been a solid record.

“Back Numbers” lacks the touch that Wareham is best known for: his voluminous, often dark musical arrangements. Instead, the duo opts for a lyrical world “where the clouds are made of candy-floss” and a sound to match that choice.

This foray from a sound akin to the Velvet Underground into one much more suited to Captain and Tennille leaves a sickly feeling in the pit of your stomach. But don’t worry if the album flops: Dean and Britta assure us that “our love will still be there.” Maybe that’s what got them into this mess in the first place.

—Reviewer Joshua J. Kearney can be reached at kearney@fas.harvard.edu.