Hotel Lights and Sondre Lerche

Hotel Lights “Girl Graffiti”
Hotel Lights lead by Darren Jessee (Former Ben Folds drummer), has produced a nuanced indie sound that adds colorful layers of shoegazing-pop to the mix of alt. country guitar rhythms. The hushed vocals blend into the chords on the opener “Falling Down” but the chorus sticks with you, filled to the brim with orchestrated guitars and bells. The title track lumbers along, but the band really impresses with the catchy “Dave Sharkey to the Dance Floor,” similar to the talk-narrative of Squeeze’s “Up the Junction” – the chorus lingers on in your head, and its my favorite track on the album.

“Super 8MM,” with its tinkling keys and swelling violins, recalls Ben Folds doing a Roger Waters song. The next few songs sap the energy level previously build up, till the smartly written ”Through the Crowd” and “My Pretty Quirk,” brings back a Wilco-like groove. This reaches a fuzzy high with “All My Asshole Friends,” a perfect rip on all those band hangers on in the early days he “can’t remember” who talk about “irrelevant things.” Fans of both Ben Folds and Wilco will love this, although Jesses too-soft vocals could put you to sleep on a few tracks here.

Sondre Lerche “Sondre Lerche”
After what I like to call a few years where he’s done some experimenting, Sondre is back as the pop songwriter extraordinaire – like a 21st century Paul Simon. The sparse opener “Ricochet”  builds to a subtle harmonic choir. Then it kicks in with the anthemic “Private Caller” with its punchy chorus and energetic guitar strums. “Go Right Ahead” is a wonderful tune that rides a bass line until it shifts keys and tone on a dime, it’s a great headphones song that you’ll want to listen to over and over again.

The inner Nilsson shows its head with the sweet strings of “Coliseum Town.”  The quirkiness of “Never Mind The Typos” is an endearing mid-tempo ballad that strums with Sondre’s off-key bits and dissonant sounds that eventually take over the song a la  “Day In The Life.”  Then the sweeping “Domino” is like a coffee house version of Coldplay,  with its soft-to-loud chorus and crashing end. Fans of Big Star will hear a bit of Chris Bell in “Tied Up To The Tide” and with that not a single boring track. So consider that mission accomplished. Fans of David Mead, Josh Rouse and other pop troubadours will surely embrace this album.