Vanity Mirror “PUFF”
The Toronto-based Brent Randall and Los Angeles-based Johnny Toomey team is well-known for their work with the baroque-pop outfit The Electric Looking Glass. Their newest endeavor, Vanity Mirror, benefits stylistically from the balance between the two musicians. Randell’s vocal is very much in the Ray Davies mold, and he wrote, played, and produced the album, with Toomey very much in Ringo-mode on drums.
The band’s sweet retro approach is the same road that the Elephant Six bands took back in the late 90s, with The Kinks, Beatles, and The Creation as musical touchpoints. Opening with “(I First Saw You There on) Tinpot Lane” catches you with the opening reverb riff and its baroque Anglophilic verses. “Tuesday’s News” is a lovely pastiche with a great piano and Rickenbacker combination. The strong songwriting helps songs like “Dandelion Wish” elevate beyond its precise retro-pop technique. The music was mostly created on vintage instruments, for example, “A Fool With An Applecart” which boasts an old piano melody punctuated by airy cello and flute flourishes. Both catchy and affecting, the album is a strong opening statement and is highly recommended.
Aloud “Apollo 6”
Bandmates Jen de la Osa and Henry Beguiristain have been the driving force for the rock group known as Aloud. They started out in Boston, but in 2017 moved to Los Angeles. In that time they released 5 albums, and this is their sixth. It starts out with an impressive anthemic sound on “Somewhere To Be” that almost dares you not to clap along, fans of Oasis will love this one. Then Jen delivers a powerful vocal akin to Nancy Wilson with “The Comeback Kid,” a bluesy number.
The band gets spacey on “Meditation for the Housebound,” and this psychedelic approach follows through on a few other songs. The “Morning Moon” starts out slow and builds into a dense chorus, “Big Blue” slinks along and another highlight is the heavy percussion of “Stranger in the Alps.” The pop styles are seemingly very varied, and lots of experimentation is evident. Not everything works, but a lot does and this is a band that definitely deserves to be heard. I will want to hear the back catalog for sure.
