Tina Sparkle: Welcome to the No Fun House
Brother/sister combination Atomic and Marsha Satterfield have been rocking together for over a decade-and-a-half. The combo has played in bands such as The Forecast, Scouts Honor, and The Amazing Kill-O-Watts among others. The two now find themselves in Tina Sparkle who release their third studio album, Welcome to the No Fun House.
The duo has been rocking together since 1996 and it seems they have reverted to their humble roots on Welcome to the No Fun House, the album would sound much more at home in the 90s than in 2011. To me, their sound is reminiscent of Veruca Salt, a strong pop-base but with a grunge leaning. Tracks like “You And Your Mess” remind me of Celebrity Skin-era Hole; the track has that lacksidasical post-grunge feel of “Malibu”. Other tracks like “Pinky Swears And Cigarette Songs” have a much more sludgy grunge feel to them almost like a female-fronted version of Melvins.
I find that for Tina Sparkle, the faster the song the more successful it is. Slow acoustic ballads like “This House Is In Flames, So Let’s Keep Warm” just don’t really work for the group. They seem much more at home with uptempo numbers like “The Long Goodbye”. Unfortunately, the album is pretty evenly split between the slower stuff and up-tempo fare which leads to a pretty mediocre album.
Rating: 6.0/10
MP3: Tina Sparkle “You and Your Mess”
Buy: iTunes or Amazon