Now that the history lesson is over, I bet you're wondering if Solemn and Wilde have managed to recapture the magic of their first two albums and the answer is… and how! Lost Together manages to capture the woody earnestness of their first album and the diversity of their second. While not earth-shatteringly different than these two albums, I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. After all, good, solid pop/folk/rock songs with candy vocal harmonies are always a plus in my book. The title track is a typical Rembrandts opener - jaw dropping harmonies, plenty of musical tension, and the obligatory mouth-watering cello. "St. Paul" mixes in a bit of country (just a bit, mind you) and "The Way She Smiles" is a soft love song enhanced by accordion. The single, "Too Late" is an upbeat song of hoped-for love that breaks into honey-sweet harmonies in the chorus and a great, gutsy guitar riff in the bridge. Sounding almost like early solo George Harrison, "One Of Us" finds Wilde singing "One of us has to say goodbye/ One of us has to know / That one of us has to be the one of us/ To let it go"…heart wrenching in it's delivery. More Beatles inspiration follows in "Some Other World" with a Rutles-esque riff that you'll swear you've heard before but can't possibly pin down the source. Of course, I'm much more settled in my love life than I was in college so the "gotta have that girl" lyrics don't resonate the way they used to, but twelve great songs can't help but to satisfy this musical sweet tooth.
This review first appeared in WhatzUp, November 2001.