Album review. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone: Etiquette

CFTPA exude a rare prettiness, fragility and child-like naivety throughout this record of heart-broken, yet recovering, electro-pop, to render it not nearly as depressing as you might expect, given the name and all. In fact, a broken heart could find great comfort here: an understanding ear, a kindred sprit, a freshly washed pillow, a big, bastard bowl of Alpen, things that keep you safe from harm.
This music is also, thanks to Owen Ashworth’s gruff, lumbersome vocal delivery, to be enjoyed by those who try to like The Postal Service or Death Cab For Cutie, but can’t because it’s just so wet and so lame and for pansies. This is a lesson in how to be depressed like Johnny Cash with a dodgy keyboard and an Amstrad, like a man, a big, bastard man; and it works, sporadically, as a starting point.
It’s not a new lover, not yet, but we all know that takes time.