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.

The Grey Race at World’s Fair | MySpace | E music

Listen to “The Johnsons”

What? What is this doing here you may ask? Well this is a power pop album designed to sound like Wham! circa 1982, courtesy of Fountain of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger. Much like he did the early 60’s with the awesome “That Thing You Do” soundtrack- he does it for the 80’s and it’s alot of fun. Hugh Grant does the vocals and gives it his best send up of George Michael/Flock of Seagulls approach with songs, and though it comes close to the line of parody with “Pop Goes The Heart” it never crosses it. It’s mostly light and cute pop music (much like the movie). Haley Bennett also does a good job singing a bunch of faux Britney Spears tunes if you’re into that style. In order to get the character right, Hugh did plently of training and it shows us how almost anyone can learn to sing and play with enough support and be a “pop star” – listen to Hugh Grant proudly admit this. And yes, most of the songs have the “Schlesinger” magic touch. Enjoy it and the movie isn’t bad either.
Listen to a clip here.

You can buy the soundtrack at Amazon

On this day, we honor fallen heroes. Rather than get all gloomy, I’d like to reflect on a simpler time in my life— and I felt this song does it. It brings me back to a time as a young pre-teen in love, with that first dance and that first crush in summer camp. Say what you will about the horrible disco years (which people now look back on with fondness) but nobody could write a better love ballad than the brothers Gibb at their commercial peak. Still underappreciated to this day.