Pitchfork

Fans of Page France's earnest chamber pop won't be surprised by this winning nugget from their forthcoming third LP. But, leading with its best assets-- Michael Nau's reedy, plaintive croon and those glockenspiels-- this charming new track does manage to distinguish itself from the band's catalog of acoustic sing-alongs. Its insistent build and fragile coda seem out of character for the group, yet there's something playful in the song's downstroked urgency-- like the Hidden Camera's "Boys of Melody" without lyrics about stained bed sheets.

Page France' are instead more chaste, the song almost pastoral; Nau sings of a little dove, worms in apples, and precious children. But each time the verse returns, a new instrument is layered into the mix-- first staccato piano chords, then marching-band drums and a doo-wop electric guitar line-- pushing the song forward until it's frothed into as much of a frenzy as the guileless folks in Page France are capable of mustering. And it's at just that moment that the music dramatically cuts out, and Whitney McGraw's sweet babydoll vocals rise out of the silence to calm everything down. "Don't you get so worked up," she sings over a dreamy wisp that could have been culled from the Mamas and the Papas' rendition of "Dedicated to the One I Love". The long, meandering outro seems a little unnecessary, but after getting so agitated, it clearly takes this group a little while to chill out.