VIVA VOCE > Lovers, Lead the Way!/The Heat Can Melt Your Brain

As members of the sonically diverse pop duo, Viva Voce (Italian for “word of mouth”), Kevin and Anita Robinson are doing their damnedest to prove matrimony not only lends itself well to monogamy, compromise, responsibility, and often children, but also to making good music.

Label: Amore! Phonics
[Rating: 3 stars / 3 1/2 stars]

As members of the sonically diverse pop duo, Viva Voce (Italian for “word of mouth”), Kevin and Anita Robinson are doing their damnedest to prove matrimony not only lends itself well to monogamy, compromise, responsibility, and often children, but also to making good music. As evidence the duo is re-releasing their first two, and currently out-of-print albums, Lovers, Lead The Way!, and The Heat Can Melt Your Brain. Both touch on a wide variety of styles, from easy going r&b, to not-from-this-planet pop music, mixing fuzzy guitar riffs and vocal harmonies with such delectable delicacies as the tambourine, kazoo, and glockenspiel. Although both albums are chock full of good songs, the nod goes to the moody and dramatic The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, over the quieter and less experimental Lovers Lead The Way!, with the funkiness of “Business Casual,” sweet melancholy of “Daylight,” and the one-two pop punches of, “Alive With Pleasure,” and “Lesson No. 1,” making it an easy choice.