kirting the line between dream-pop and dance club electronica, Venus Hum’s MCA debut Big Beautiful Sky is fully cognizant of how derivative it is. And this is more than acceptable. Some bands relish in rehashing their influences, many pulling it off quite well. But for every Interpol out there today, it seems like there are ten more Venus Hum-eque bands that just can’t quite pull it off.


The easiest imitation to identify is lead singer Annette Strean’s voice. It will instantly come across as a mix between a certain Icelandic diva and Anneli Marian Drecker of Bel Canto. Now, taking after two other wonderful vocalists is never a bad thing, but when it’s all a singer has going for her, it can grow tiresome rather quickly.


The Björk aping is most evident on a majority of tracks, but the most obvious being the sputtered vocal delivery on “Springtime #2,” which, lyrically, could even be mistaken for a Björk refrain: “Lawnmowers! Bees! Daffodils, sunbursts, and moonbeams! / Dazzling dandelions! Pop! Pop! Popping through canvas black! Through stars and back!” Paying homage to her logger father, Strean weaves an “Isobel”-like tale about a clan of woodsmen and their wives “over the hill [and] beyond the stream.” If imitation is the highest form of flattery -- then this is ersatz.


The sad thing is that the dancey-ornate pop, that Venus Hum is most known for, is their weakest aspect. On “Hummingbirds,” the most “dance” track of the album, the band finds itself in the same lush, groovy electronic instrumentation territory as many-a-bands before them, nevertheless Strean sounds more comfortable -- maybe not original -- but at least more discriminating then on the faux-Björk tunes. They follow this pace into “Montana,” another dance-tinged track, which is no doubt the leadoff single, (the lyrics contain both the album title and the word “radio”) yet it’s missing any sort of ingenuity or singable melody to standout.


It’s interesting to find that the most pleasant tunes are the ones where Venus Hum slow down the drum machine, use a less-is-more approach, and give Strean more room to be herself. Both “Wordless May” and “Alice” evince that underemphasized strength of Venus Hum. Strean’s vocals find strength not inside a thumping beat and synthy electronics, but simple, stark instrumentation that does not pressure her into Björk-like territory. For example: “The Bells” starts out promising with a beautifully simple guitar melody and Strean’s soft vocals rising and falling over gentle strings -- until it bursts into an overindulgent cacophony of synths and drum rolls, completely burying her vocals and her previous melody.


If Venus Hum could pull something of a reverse Goldfrapp and release a smoother, less dance, more dream-pop follow up to Big Beautiful Sky, giving Strean more room to breath, the result would no doubt be far superior to Big Beautiful Sky’s pussyfooting.