The Puppini Sisters

Nostalgia can be a tricky thing to negotiate for modern, mainstream audiences, but on the whole London's Puppini Sisters escape its most obvious pitfalls. Three-part harmonies and 1940s jazz vocals are the name of the game on The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo, the group's second full-length album, which extends the works done on their debut by continuing to reinvent modern classics (and some standards) with their throw-back style.

The fact that they're retrofitting a mostly American style of song with continental flair, it's tough not to think of the catchy track "Belleville Rendez-Vous" from 2003's acclaimed French animated flick The Triplets of Belleville (the film that actually inspired the trio to form a group). The influence is appropriate enough; there's always been something about Brits re-contextualizing American sounds from an outside perspective—all the way from The Beatles to Amy Winehouse. The international take on Americana is reinforced by band founder Marcella Puppini, who was born and raised in Bologna, Italy.

The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo is at its best when breaking from the mold. Too many songs feature the Andrews Sisters-styled harmonies and nothing else. When either Puppini, Stephanie O'Brien or Kate Mullins takes the solo vocal lead, it provides a refreshing contrast that makes those harmonies sweeter, as on the Puppini-penned "I Can't Believe I'm Not A Millionaire," or the Duke Ellington classic "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." And speaking of classics, '60s shape-shifting band, Classics IV, find their track "Spooky" successfully opening the album, and a cover of Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" is winningly peppy. However, the girls' take on The Bangles' "Walk Like An Egyptian" falls flat due to some unfortunately limp phrasing of the most memorable line. It's not enough to kill the album, but it's also not enough to keep you coming back over and over again. For genre fanatics, The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo should be a rewarding delight; for everyone else, it’s a pleasant-enough diversion, but not a lasting one.

—Chris Hassiotis
02.20.08

On record you can't see the many costume changes into stunning '30s vintage dresses, or be impressed by the trio's mugging or musical chops -- Marcella Puppini plays piano and accordion and Stephanie O'Brien plays credible jazz fiddle. This leaves the vocalizing, and while the trio isn't half bad, its members are not spectacular or particularly adventurous singers. On their second album they follow the template of their first. There are a couple of standards including "It Don't Mean a Think If It Ain't Got That Swing," and contemporary numbers -- "Spooky," "Walk Like an Egyptian" -- delivered in '40s vocal trio-style arrangements. Fine as far as it goes, but the joke is wearing thin. The Puppini Sisters' salvation is clearly in their original material. All three Sisters write solid tunes; the sooner they can come up with a full album's worth of original tunes, the better their career prospects will be. Puppini's "I Can't Believe I'm Not a Millionaire" is a blues full of arch humor, and her "Jilted" sounds like it would have been a natural for Peggy Lee, a sultry, sexy tune with a strong hook and a great lyric. O'Brien contributes "Soho Nights" a jump tune with a strong vocal arrangement, a perfect evocation of the era they obviously love. Kate Mullins may be the strongest writer of the three. Her "It's Not Over (Death or the Toy Piano)" is another song in the big-band mode, but its complex melody and inventive lyric make it one of the album's strongest tracks. ~ j. poet, All Music Guide