Golden Suits

Fred Nicolaus, once of the band Department of Eagles, has now dipped his foot into the wading pool of striking out on his own. Golden Suits, both the name of his new band and the debut album, Golden Suits, Fred Nicolaus puts out a 10 track folk/pop set of songs. With the opening song, "Swimming in '99" I got a duel reaction from the song. With the catchy beats being played with the instruments I was liking what I was hearing. They are fun and they have a beat that caught my attention but it was with the vocals that I thought the music fell a little short.
His sound is one that makes me think of other bands but that's not surprising considering that the music don't sound much different than a lot of the indie folk/pop bands out on the market. This is not a high paced album with quick beats and riffs being tore out of the guitars. Instead it's a mellow, slow tempo album that at first had me a little bored. That first song didn't have much energy in the vocals and even though the instrumental portion was being played with a upbeat tempo, the song just didn't have enough energy to it.
I was finding that my attention was being pulled away from most of the songs on this album. It's not that the songs are bad, actually I found that by the third song I was liking the way Fred Nicolaus was sounding. At first I thought his voice was too rough where he didn't sound like he was hitting all the right pitches as he sung. But then as the songs progressed I found that his vocals where fitting for the music he is playing and they actually do have a pleasant sound to them. Here's the problem though, the songs overall emotion is too mellow and a little depressing. I found that I liked the songs in portions, as in I would like one or two at a time but not much more because I would become either sad or distracted while listening.