"Flowers and Balloons", by Bliss Station
Genre: Dance / Euro House / Electronic
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I have NEVER heard a song this happy ... that I liked. In fact, I was almost going to hit the stop button on this one and come back to it when I was in a more accepting mood. But, as fate would have it, by the chorus I sort of "got it". And now, twenty listens or so later, I think I have come to understand what the concept of bliss truly means. Stop laughing. "Flowers and Balloons" is a highly danceable euro-house / dance groove with a playful message and a serious kick. And it's fun. And sometimes, that's the point.

ABOUT THE BAND: :
New York City's Bliss Station is the brainchild of Israeli born Gary L. Starting his musical career as a drummer, Gary eventually moved to keyboards and started Bliss Station after becoming fed up with being "locked behind the drums" (maybe he was playing behind Phil Collins' set. That'll do it.). Completing the band, we have vocalist Shara, guitarist David Bernstein, and programmer Rodney Smith. And if the rest of their tracks are anything like "Flowers and Balloons", the Bliss Station union has resulted in a good energy quartet with a great mixture of fun and serious dance beats. For an American audience, try to fuse eighties pop vocals with good house music. For those on the other side of the ocean, imagine going to any of the dance clubs in the UK and you could easily expect to hear this song there. Imagine a floor full of hot british girls letting it out on the dance floor. Now add a few brit guys in there (I said stop laughing). Now listen to this song. You're there. In fact, I'm going there as soon as I finish this review.

ABOUT THE SONG:
"Flowers and Balloons" is dance through and through. Gary L's roomy keyboards draw us into a groove that's nearly impossible not to move to. And don't be thrown by the opening lyrics themselves -- like I said, it's a painfully cheerful song, lyrically. "The sun is out / and it's so bright / birds are chirping / dancing 'round / we float up to an ice cream shop" ... and so on. I wasn't kidding. However, once you grasp the song in it's entirety, you sort of get the tongue-in-cheek approach Bliss Station is taking here, as well as the general fun vibe of the tune.

ON THE DOWNSIDE:
Not a whole lot of downsides on this song, for what it is. There's an odd point near the end of the song where the harmonies back away from the melody in what sounds like a mistake. My ear caught it, and I'm pretty sure yours will too. Had it not been for that little thing, this song would have been flawless.

STRONG POINTS:
Once again, the dance beat is downright infectious on "Flowers". In fact, I've probably made an ass of myself in front of my roommates because of it. The production on this song is solid and well done; the bass shines through nicely, while the drum track itself doesn't come off as too electronic, which is a good thing, in my opinion. Also notable here is the breakdown during the bridge. A downturn from the "sunshine and love" verses and choruses, the bridge takes a serious turn before skip-skip-skipping back to the meat of the song.

THE CONCLUSION?:
Again, "Flowers and Balloons" is a very danceable track, which won huge points with me. If you're into dance or house electronica, eighties synth pop or euro house, be prepared to download and get down a little bit. Along with this track, Bliss Station has tons of tracks available for download at their website. And it's made me want to go dance in public, which is probably one of the only bad things about this track.

Stone Bayliss
BandFreaks Staff Reviewer