"Corner Store" sums up the charm of Brazilian Girls' eponymous debut and its uncanny ability to be all things to all people. The group drops cabaret, dub, samba, folk music, and more onto tracks that never sound forced or self-conscious. The sounds this band hears in its collective head inspire a global-minded groove with a generous intercontinental flavor. Like Sciubba, the multilinguistic lead singer, the other Brazilian Girls -- Didi Gutman, a keyboardist from Buenos Aires, Argentina; Californian bassist Jesse Murphy; and Kansas City drummer Aaron Johnson -- have all lived and played abroad, soaking up the international influences that color their music.
The ensemble bounces from "Pussy," a dancehall groove that combines raunch and class as Sciubba describes the ordeal of a pretty woman walking down a street filled with hustlers and drug dealers, to the straight-ahead disco pulse of "Dance till the Morning." There are sentimental cabaret ballads such as "Ships in the Night," which possesses a delirious, reverb-drenched vibraphone and Hawaiian guitar fills sampled by Gutman. On these slower, moody numbers, Sciubba's vocals are sincere, delivered without a trace of the irony that many bands use to mask anything that smacks of real feeling. Brazilian Girls doesn't shy away from emotion; even their most lighthearted melodies are sharp and soulful, which gives one hope for the future of romantic sentiment and genuine affection in pop music.