After making the #1 spot on David Bash’s extensive top ten list last year for Lies and Fairy Tales, Ryan “Shmedly” Maynes and crew bang out another top notch power pop album. The opening single “Generation Ship” is a majestic ELO styled gem that conjures images of a Jules Verne inspired zeppelin floating across the clouds. Crunchy guitar riffs and Shmed’s growl on “Tarantula” is a loving tribute to your arachnophobia. The title track has some great instrumentation and the lyrics are literally pulled from a horticulture textbook.
The band stretches a bit on western themed “The Desert” and “It Should Have Been Me.” The tracks at the album’s middle are good, but don’t reach the earlier highs. There are still great standouts here like the sublime “Crocodile” and hand clapping goodness of “In The Way.” Shmed goes back to the Lynne playbook ending things with “Blue Thing,” but overall this music is way better than the piles of other bands, and just the amount of gems here demand it makes my top ten list for 2011 (So far each year Shemd has made my list).
In my view this is their second best album. It is much better than lies and fairytales, which I found a tad dull. This album is more quirky, with discordant moments. The first track is the best, brilliant, the best song ELO never wrote. I listen to it quite a lot.
Believe it or not, I agree with you. When you compare it to their previous efforts – it falls a bit short. If I had half ratings in my system it would get an "8.5" – it's still worthy of a top ten for this year.
Honestly, I think this is their weakest album. It's not bad, and definitely has its highlights. But it just doesn't match up to their previous works, IMO.