Of flight and fury

The Miserable Rich, with their 'chamber pop' string quartet and close-to-falsetto male vocals, have donned the musical equivalent of a monocle, pipe and stove-pipe hat for their trip to the indie disco. This is a risk. In a get-up like that, you'd better have something interesting to say or you're going to look silly. It sometimes (on tracks like 'Oliver') comes together to nicely emotive effect. Alas, the string harmonies are a bit too straightforward, and the lyrical observations are often pleasantly rhymed without being ground-breaking (love is hard, wolves are scary, communication is difficult sometimes). So I can't help asking: why dress up so fancy?