This one seemed like a no brainer for this blog. Cartoon Spirits’ “Pop Rocks” could well be our theme song, except in this case it refers the exploding mouth candy.  Oh well.  There’s no taking away from what is still a great poprock single.  Love the understated guitar and Michael Faherty’s solid everyman vocals.  In fact, you won’t go far wrong with the whole EP.  Crustacean is a focused 4 song batch of various classic sounding poprock influences.  I definitely hear the Cheap Trick on “Remake the Stalls” while “Back to that Cult” is very Squeezy, without either being derivative.  And “Common Law” name-checks Toronto, so what more needs to be said?

The Cartoon Spirits hail from craft beer capital Portland, Oregon and claim as their mission to revive the power pop tradition in the Pacific Northwest.  This is a good start.  Check out their progress on their Facebook page.