Music Reviews

Album Review: Ludo – ‘You’re Awful, I Love You’

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 28, 2008, 12:13 GMT

Ludo consists of Andrew Volpe (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Ferrell (guitar), Marshall Fanciullo (bass), Tim Convy (keyboards), and Matt Palermo (drums).  Their name comes from the puppet character from the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. 

If you watch the music video for ‘Love Me Dead’ on their MySpace page, you’ll see that the band is as animated as one of Henson’s creations and just as fantastical.  The band signed to Island Records and their first effort for the label is ‘You’re Awful, I Love You.’

The album opens with the infectious “Love Me Dead,” which is about the singer both loving and hating the person to which he’s dating.  The lyrics are hilarious and the music accompanying it is just great. 

Ludo scores more when they’re going for the comedy effort and those were the songs that I had to listen to over and over again.  “Lake Pontchartrain” starts off like a road trip song and ends up a horror film tribute. 

It’s during these mad songs that Ludo really shined for me.  They’re other more “normal” tunes were not too shabby but I found myself embracing the weirdness and madness of the band. 

Ludo’s ‘You’re Awful, I Love You’ is strange stuff indeed, but a pleasure to spin on the CD player.