Running Girl

Album Review

March Records re-released Ooberman's Running Girl album in 2002, complete with two bonus tracks. The Liverpool band's U.S. debut, the release was a breath of life for the band, who finally had a chance to be heard by the American indie pop audience. Their intelligent, synthesizer-based brand of indie pop had already been winning fans over in England for years. The disc begins with the title track, where singer Dan Popplewell's distorted vocals add a rich element to the understated keyboard-based track. The folksy "Flashing Light at Sunset" is next, with Sophia Churney's lush vocals leading the way. The heartbreaking "We'll Know When We Get There" follows, allowing Popplewell and Churney to share alternating vocal duties. Churney again returns to the lead vocal chair on the astonishing "Here Come the Ice Wolves." The delicate guitar on "Kitchen Fire" gives way to Churney's distorted spoken vocals, and "Alone at Last" is a piano-based musical meditation featuring Popplewell's most powerful vocals of the disc. The bonus tracks include the shimmering "Dolphin Blue," and the Phantom 309 remix of "Running Girl." The disc garnered the band more press in the U.S. than it had before, and bonus tracks allowed for Ooberman to release the bonus tracks to their ever-growing audience.