The Lunar Laugh (aka Jared Lekites and friends) dedicated this single to the memories of Pat DiNizio and Tom Petty. A great catchy chorus with a sweet slide guitar riff! Pure bliss.
Willie Wisely delivers a live studio session recorded live in a Laurel Canyon, with Dan Kalisher (guitar/pedal steel), Erik Kertes (bass), Mark Stepro (drums) and Ryan Perez-Daple (sax).
Air For Ants is a New York City indie rock band with ambient pop and jazz elements. Proof that some experimental pop can be damn catchy and full of pent-up emotion.
Vegas With Randolph‘s new LP Legs & Luggage is due out any day now — this is the awesome opening track. Plenty of fuzzy riffs you can dance to!
The Dig is another NYC indie-pop outfit with a two EPs out for 2018; Moonlight Baby & Afternoon With Caroline. A little synth and harmonies never hurt anyone right? They remind me of Sparks a little. Here is a track from them.
Perennial power pop favorite Greg Pope is back! After 2016’s Guiding Star, Pope continues to impress with his crunchy guitar chords and catchy choruses akin to Matthew Sweet. “Forget About You” is a solid opener with the wall of guitars and an earworm melody. Next “She’s Already There” changes tone multiple times, with some classical touches and it makes for a unique listening experience that leads to the chorus.
Pope carefully constructs his songs and adds nice little details, like a harpsichord opening on “Planet Earth” and occasional metal-styled guitar arpeggios sprinkled in other tunes. Highlights include; “Hopes and Dreams and Fears,” “Dreams About You” and the amazing finale “You Got Inside My Head.” Highly Recommended (as usual).
After the brilliant Thank You Bethesdain 2013, Parthenon Huxley is back. He’s been on fans radar for over 30 years as an expert in songwriting, production, and guitar playing. He is also a founding member of The Orchestra and played with numerous famous musicians over the years.
“You gotta vision you can’t let go…” he sings on the title track, a rousing opener full of great energy. But most of the songs are more subdued, like the mellow “Song For James,” written for his daughter Fiona James Huxley, which is like a lost Eagles song. I definitely hear some Joe Walsh influences in the guitar solo. He amps the energy up for the catchy “Just Sayin’,” which sounds like The Cars meet Tom Petty a little. ELO fans will appreciate the strings on the majestic “Off We Go” and the Beatlesque touches on “Inside Your Shoes.”
Another highlight “That’s When I Know” has a familiar rhythm and manages to go into some nice directions with it. The influences on this album are more ’70s soft rock-oriented than his past catalog, but Hux always manages to entertain. A very good album that pop music fans should embrace.
Otto is a Swedish multi-instrumentalist with a truly gifted talent for melody and his debut album Mono is full of 60’s inspired tunes that sound like a cross between Donovan, Nick Drake, and The Zombies. So, it’s no accident that Otto’s cover photo is a direct homage to Beatles ’65. The first song is the somber “It’s Over,” a hushed dirge with strings like “Elenore Rigby.” But the atmospherics aren’t always enough. Thankfully Otto can dazzle with subtle melodic twists like “My Weak Spot,” with its goose-bump inducing chorus or go full bore Beatlesque with “Wrong Side Of The Road.”
Otto also gives us a haunted waltz with “Lalala” and the memorable ballad “I Know I’ll Never Get It Right” that builds up with a very McCartney-like bass line. Additional highlights include the bouncy “It’s About Time” and the harpsichord ballad “Somehow They Lie.” For all these impressive songs, the album tone remains mostly downbeat. But if you are a fan of the retro-pop goodness, look no further.
Spain’s Goodfellows came together in 1995 and through lineup changes and five albums, they have stood the test of time. With addictive melodies and strong guitar riffs, they are lead by Tomás Forns and David Cladera on guitars, Pepo Granero on bass, Miquel Gibert on drums, and Biel Palmer added as vocalist. With almost all the songs in English and no visible accent, it’s very accessible to American power pop fans.
The quick angular riffs on “My Kind Of Girlfriend” make it a great “lost hit” that you thought The Rubinoos did back in the day. I was most impressed by the Teenage Fanclub-like “Nada Que Objetar” and “She Was” with its melodic jangle and harmonies. “Good For Me” is another winner that recalls late-era Raspberries. While the album’s second-half struggles to maintain momentum, it still contains excellent music that deserves to be heard. And as with most Goodfellows LPs, the CD packaging (designed like a mini pizza box) is also an inventive collectible.
Steven Page was once the leading voice in one of Canada’s most successful melodic pop bands, Barenaked Ladies. After 2009, Page left the band and they’ve gone their separate ways. Enough water has passed under the bridge now for both Page and his old band. Since Page was central to all those recognizable BNL hits, his solo work has gone in a different direction. The quirky subject matter of past is mostly gone and Steven faces more serious issues.
Page’s powerful tenor starts out slow and builds up to an impressive layered chorus in the opener “Nothing Special,” where he asks “What’s next?” and rattles off a series of timely fears (“Junior’s got a gun”) while stating “everything is fine.” Page does touch on political issues like “Where Do You Stand,” a soulful ballad and the single “White Noise” as a dual call to action to his audience about taking a stand against racism. One of the best songs here is the catchy “What I Got From You” full of strings, and a breezy melody with a jazzy horn interlude.
Page delves in bossa nova tempos and most of the songs hit their mark. Additional highlights include “Feelgood Summer,” the ELO-like “Shooting Star,” and the reflective dad advice in “Whistling Through The Dark.” This LP does require multiple listens to really appreciate all the details and the smart messaging contained therein. Highly Recommended!
It’s been several years since I heard from folk-pop artist Annie Dressner, and her music is a good palette cleanser if you’ve been listening to heavier stuff. Starting with the opener “Fades Away” it has all the right melodic sensibilities with cello chords and Annie’s gentle vocals. The production is solid and the bouncy “Heartbreaker” is a descriptive environment of an ex-lover and moving on, all set to a quick tempo. Fans of Lisa Loeb and Jenny Lewis will enjoy Annie’s storytelling abilities and memorable choruses.
Most of the songs deal with the aftermath of a failed relationship, as “Kentucky” and “Over and Over” wallow in self-doubt and insecurity. But the latter song’s chorus with Dan Wilde (backing vocals) has some lovely harmonies. It doesn’t always neatly fit into the folk-pop genre, as “Get Out” and “Falter” are more straight pop, helped out by Matthew Caws(Nada Surf) on guitar. But what’s most impressive is her brilliant lyrics; “Spinning round that old record that I loved/Played it too much and I broke it” on the reflective ballad “Paper Moon.” Overall a great album for those freshly broken hearts.
After 2015’s solid LP The Better End, Tomas Dahl took a break from songwriting and spent more time in his “day job” working long nights while spending part-time as drummer and guitarist for The Stanleys last year. Thankfully, holding back those musical impulses wouldn’t last long. In fact, it burst open to a flow of great power pop gems on “Ten Times Four.” There are tons of standout tracks here. From the grand opening chords of “Miracle Turn,” it makes a statement that cannot be ignored, with melodic guitar crunch familiar to fans of late 90’s mainstays Myracle Brah, Starbelly, The Shoes, and The Posies. “Somewhere Beautiful” starts with the lyric “First rule is lighting is everything…” And then it launches into the brilliantly catchy chorus. Continuing, it gently goes into the buzzing gem “Secret Hiding Place” a dead ringer for a lost Teenage Fanclub classic.
And the hits keep coming from the aptly named “Contagious” to the contemplative “In The Basement.” Not a single weak track, although the slow ballad “Roadblocks” feels like a sleepwalk until we get to a final burst of energy in “The Good Ones.” Overall an awesome feel-good experience for the ears. It happens every year in the fall when artists flood my inbox with great music to be considered for the annual top ten list. Caddy easily squeezes into the top of the list for 2018. Super duper highly recommended.
The Turnback have gradually moved to a heavier power pop sound (think Foo Fighters) since 2015’s Are We There Yet? The psychedelic touches are long gone, and that’s okay because we want this band’s sound to evolve over time, right?
The opener “Here I Am” has a catchy chorus and the requisite riffs that still make The Turnback a power pop favorite. Both leads, Todd Giglio and Kenny Sherman add a heavier riff and slight growl to “This Could Be Our Year,” and the Monkees-like verses make it more upbeat. It’s a sweet and salty pop mix that continues with “Hit And Run” and the impressive “She Walks On Gold.”
“What’s The Difference Anyway” and “Untitled So Far” are mid-tempo soul-searching songs where Kenny’s vocals really shine. The duo takes on political causes with “Stand For Something (Or Go Sit Down)” and it’s good, but taking on apathy isn’t exactly as revolutionary as their past gems (like “If I Were God.”) “Your Fragile Wall” does a much better job with the hooks. Overall a very good album. It doesn’t quite reach the highs of their past work, but it absolutely deserves to be heard.
