Category: Power Pop Review

Full of heavy rock bluster and power ballads, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals are an impressive outfit. Potter’s gritty strong vocals are the natural successor to Ann Wilson of Heart. Like the best female performers, she’s honed her craft on the road, touring upstate New York jams and clubs. A great breakout performance with a lot of passion and energy make this debut worth the spin. The opening “Ah Mary” provides a rousing start, with buzzing guitars and strong keyboard chorus, all topped by Graces’ vocal. Followed by “Stop the Bus” it provides an impressive guitar solo. When we get to the ballad “Apologies” – a classic break-up song, the feel is closer to recent Sheryl Crow. “Lose Some Time” has a slight jazzy taste, and the lyrics are pretty strong here too. Toward the second half of the album, the group slows to a rock country tempo, shown in the song “Here’s To The Meantime.” Overall this is a great CD that could spell stardom for Grace Potter. It appeals to a wide audience, and given some airplay – Grace will increase her fan base in no time.

GracePotter.com | My Space | Amazon | Itunes

Listen to “Ain’t no Time”

The Beau Brummels were an important the link between The Beatles and West Coast folk during the late 60s. They have a great body of work that has never fully been appreciated. And they were one of the few (only?) groups to be animated by Hanna Barbara in an episode of “The Flintstones.” I post this in memory of John Peterson, the former drummer of the Beau Brummels and Harpers Bizzare. At age 62, he died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack.

The great part of International Pop Overthrow is that you learn about a ton of new bands that produce excellent music. Unlike other genres of music, power pop is overall played sincere. There are no posuers in this genre, and the talent is better than any other compilation of this kind. It’s a hearty recommendation to you to purchase “International Pop Overthrow Vol.10” CD set. The set is perfect for those powerpopaholics who like many of these bands, but don’t want to spend lots of bucks on the piles of CDs or have the time to explore the web for these gems. Dave Bash lovingly selects each artist on the set, and most of them are truly worthy of greatness.

Awesome Badfingerish tracks from disc one include: The Orchid Highway’s “Medicine Tree,” and The Strange Fruits “Little Bird.” If you prefer a more modern approach, then you can’t beat Farrah’s “Do You Ever Think of Me” or The Lanes “Scarlet Chapaeu” and this is all on one disc.

On disk two you get excellent tracks from The Dirty Royals “Cover Up The Sun” which is in the best Del Amitri/Fastball tradition of modern power pop. Included is variations on the genre, like the power pop punk/hip hop of The Issue’s “Sayin’ Things” and the pop-psyche mastery of “I Am” by The Ringles.

Disk Three is full of fun and quirky pop gems. The Shamus Twins mix the sixties style with eighties guitar rythyms and melody with “Garden of Weeds.” Sprinkled throughout the discs are also modern indie pop like “World I Left Behind” by The Rulers. And old stalwarts like Kelly’s Heels, Jeremy and Twenty Cent Crush are here and each have excellent tracks as well.

You’ll have 66 songs to wade through, and like The Whitman Sampler box the cover is modeled after, you’ve got many flavors. It’s common thread is a melodic sensability that sticks with you. Even if you have many of the artists full albums, there are plenty of unreleased and rare tracks too. It’s a goodie you don’t want to miss, as a limited number of these sets are available. Get it at Not Lame.

My Space | Not Lame

As an Australian pop band, Brilliant Fanzine has been slowly building this latest album. In 2005 the EP with the single “Change for You” was released and earned some good airplay down under. They sound a bit like Coldplay with a lingering mellowness, or lack of intensity. This year they released a full length CD “Then Comes Monday” – a laid back jangle album that some pop fans may love. “Would We Go Back” has that mid 90s feel that reminds me of The Ocean Blue or Aztec Camera. “Make it for Yourself” has a dreamy quality with engaging melodies and “One in 10,000” does a decent job of adding a bit of The Pretty Things sound to the song with a great guitar riff in the middle of the song. Much of the first half of the album produces that subtle form of lush indie pop. It doesn’t have a breakout hit single, but the song “Come up and See Me” comes close. It’s got a great little riff and memorable hook in the chorus. The second half of the album is bleak in tone and many of the songs tread over ground that has been done better by other bands. The album ends with the slow title track “Then Comes Monday,” a ballad with lots of sonic effects, but for me it falls a bit flat. Fans of jangle pop will enjoy this though.

My Space | Popboomerang

Listen to “Change for You”

A good time was had by all at the IPO show on November 10, 2007. All the acts were great – even through it began with some performers playing solo without a backing band. Chris Breetveld had a good acoustic set that got the crowd’s attention and the next act, to my surprise was the great Lane Steinberg of Tan Sleeve. He was an amazing solo with near pefect syncing to an orchestral backdrop with “Happy Holidaze.” Then the club was transformed via flashback to 1981 with the tight new wave set by The Trend. The highlight of the set for me was the single “Mama Thought You Were A Nice Girl”. After a great set the room continued to rock with another reunited 80s band, Buddy Love (pictured above) as they sweated out an amazing bunch of high energy songs. After that Dave Bash, IPO founder introduced me to the audience and in turn I thanked him and introduced The Orion Experience to the stage. It was really cool for Dave to let me introduce an act — I hope to do it next year at IPO NYC!