Hot off the blog press! I recently interviewed both Ken Sharp, hot from release of his newest “Sonic Crayons” and The Grip Weeds lead guitar Kristin Pinell and band leader, Kurt Reil (shown on the right) hot from their release “House of Vibes Revisited”. Visit these interview links for Ken Sharp or The Grip Weeds, or click on the blue button to the right.
We now have a downloadable widget for your site with all the latest reviews from Powerpopaholic.com – just scroll down to the bottom of this page and look to the right column side. There is a free mini powerpopaholic blog to add your homepage or site! Enjoy!
Ian Lloyd of “The Stories” being interviewed about the group and his experiences with the hit song “Louie, Louie” and Stories co-founder Michael Brown (Left Banke). Download it here. Thanks to Damien for the link.
Also EarCandy magazine did a summer interview with Rick Gallego, leader of the excellent power pop group, Cloud Eleven about the last album “Sweet Happy Life” – read it here. Thanks to Kompost for the link.
This labor of love by Jon Raleigh is a great album for fans of classic rock and roll. “Rollo Time” draws it’s power pop influences from some great 70s bands, like Bad Company, Led Zepplin, Alice Cooper and proto-metal bands like Black Sabbath. The first song “Maintenance Time” is the poppiest of the bunch and resembles Matthew Sweet and The Shazam. After this the songs get a bit heavier with a strong rhythm section, which is powered their riffs to perfection. “Float down the River” uses this beat driven rhythm to plow the song into your ear, much like a Weezer tune. “Travel the World” is my favorite tune on the album, it has just the right amount of guitar crunch and harmonies with a great hook in the chorus. Is it any wonder that both Rollo Time and Cheap Trick are both from Illinois? The next tune “Don’t” flirts with that proto-metal sound, and “Cut Me To the Quick” sounds like a lost track from the band, Free with a chorus that morphs into Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. I love this melding of styles, and it’s also a standout track with great guitar solo. Also notable is the very Zepplin-like ballad “Teach to Grow” with multi-tracking guitars weaving some magic here. Although the melody didn’t thrill me, the lyrics impressed me in “Moth and Butterfly” the albums closer. For those who love meat-and-potatoes power pop, it’s time for “Rollo Time” MySpace | CD Baby
I reviewed the debut The Grey Race EP a while back and now they have produced a full length album. Overall this album is a low key affair, with many melodic ballads and a few mid-tempo numbers. Lead singer Jon Darling has a good vocal approach, like Paul McCartney fronting Coldplay. “Stop inside Your Start” is a reverse engineered take of the melody for the earlier EP song “On the Chin” and fits nicely as an opener. Tracy Bonham and Julia Darling adds thier own strength to the harmonies here and they sound great together with the band. The production on the full length here is carefully constructed and sounds excellent. “Cracks” has a dreamy quality that has served Coldplay so well, but there is a lack of hard edge on other songs that would push it past the casual listener. “Try not to think” is a beautiful ballad that is equal parts heart-felt and majestic. Other songs here try to match it’s grace, notably “From Me To You,” but the song lacks a strong hook even though the arrangement is wonderfully realized. On the latter half of the album a great standout track is “The Johnsons” – an epic thematic story in song and superior to Coldplay or Travis. With most of the album in a low key dreamy mode, the few mid tempo numbers stand out and “Lights Out” is a good example of this. It has everything you need in a song, strong melody, lyrics, vocals and instrumentation – and done very well. These standout tunes make “Give it Love” a worthy purchase or emusic download and a dream-pop favorite.
