After 10 albums it might seem strange to re-introduce you to Super 8. But his new album is kind of a new start. Retro Metro gives you a kaleidoscope view of everything that is great about the Super 8’s supercharged take on the 1960s. So gather round errant flower children, folk rockers, sunshine pop lovers and Kinksian jangle fans, your pied piper is here with tunes to lead you astray and then some.
Following the funky keyboard-heavy instrumental opener “Retro Metro Theme” we get right down to what Super 8 does best with “Keep Doing It,” a chipper pop tune that manages to squeeze the sunshine out of the summer sky. You can practically feel the beach breeze coming off ‘feel good’ tracks like “Almost Anything” and “Mary Jane.” But the record has a harder edge too. Four songs included here are remnants of an aborted mystery-group side-project entitled The Plus 4 and they appear to have set the tone for the whole record. “You Look Right Through Me” rings out with jangle hooks that are unstoppable while the chorus is so Zombies it’ll make you swoon. Other former Plus 4 numbers like “Tell It Like It Is,” “Take It From Me” and “Every Word Is True” have a swinging Meet-the-Beatlesque charm, ornamented with some sweet sweet harmonica solos. But as we dig into the newer material here the star of this record might just be the Rickenbacker electric 12 string guitar. It makes everything sparkle. Check out its impact on “Lies,” which opens with a jauntiness reminiscent of the Fabs’ “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” Or see what it adds to the Stonesy “Just A Song,” the Ray Davies-ish “Another Me,” or Monkees-style “Just Me & You.”
So ask yourself, have you really met Super 8? Retro Metro is all the proof you need he is the grooviest undiscovered star you definitely need to become acquainted with. You can arrange your audio meet-up here.
Let’s face it, most killer hooks are instrumental. It’s a guitar lick, a piano riff, or even a trumpet solo. Today’s post pays tribute to those performers who have no words – just ever so alluring instrumental hooks.
We kick things off with the self-described ‘desert-influenced, surf-infused’ style of Austin, Texas band Sheverb. Their new album She Rides Again is a close study of what might be called the Morricone school of spaghetti-western guitar playing, with a strong touch of psychedelia in places. “Redemption of the River Witch” is so on point you can practically taste the dusty grit on your lips, complete with trumpet, whistling and some psych-guitar freak-out playing two-thirds in. Canada’s cold cold capital of Ottawa turns out some pretty hot guitar playing from the likes of The Reverb Syndicate. The title track from their last album Last of the V8 Interceptors is nothing but tasty licks all the way through. I could ride that lead guitar melody into replay country all day long. For more dextrous lead guitar playing look no further than Messer Chups. These guys have a swamp monster rocking vibe and a strong sense of fun, well-illustrated with albums titles like Taste the Blood of Guitaracula and The Curse of Catzilla. From the former LP we feature the hot-blooded romp “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Time to take this party political, performatively speaking that is. Seems some bands can’t get enough of that Cold War nostalgia. While hailing from St. Catharines, Ontario The Kaputniks appear to love all things from our bygone bipolar world. “Politburo Dance Party” conjures images of rather rotund men in too-tight suits and uniforms dancing somewhat formally, like their lives might depend on it. In a similar vein People’s Defence Force evoke the menace and Bond-esque mystery of a cinematic 1960s Cold War on “Gear Head.” The deft application of rumbly lead guitar and few Balkan- style melodic interludes will have you reaching for the keys of your imaginary English sports car. Another group of attentive movie music aficionados can be found amongst the ranks of the music collective Morricone Youth. Their various film-themed LPs cover westerns, horror, socialist realism, porn scores and more! Here we feature two tunes from two different albums, “Barber Twist” from A Song of Two Humans and “Eva Kant” from Danger: Diabolik. Where the former gives off a retro Get Smart! vibe the latter has a much a more serious 1960s smart-pop sound.
Time to take things in more keyboard kind of direction. The Link Quartet hit the keys hard on their come-back single “The Saint-Tropez Heist.” Not that any guitar stood neglected. But just listen to that Hammond organ! It is driving the beat right over a cliff and then some. Toronto’s Cameronoiseis also a keys guy, though his records sound like those sixties albums where someone plays the Beatles on a zither. In other words, his organ sound is out of this world, in a good way. The most recent EP is Id’s My Party and I love the way the guitar chords come crashing in on opening number “He Could.” Talk about bait and switch as this great guitar sound is quickly eclipsed by a wild bit of organ exposition. More Austin, Texas is here with uber productive performer Get Set Go. Sometimes he puts out albums where he sings, sometimes he doesn’t. Or, more to the point, there are times when he treats voice as just another instrument. Like on the all-instrumentals album Forgetting Things Done. Just listen to the crisp separation of lead guitar work and the vocal ‘la la la la’s that effortlessly propel the song along.
Let’s wrap this wordless journey with some classic 1960s instrumentalizing. On his recent EP Hot Rod RampageBrad Marino pays tribute 1963 era surf and car music culture. So Jan and Dean and Beach Boys obviously. Given the period, a rumbly instrumental was de rigueur and Marino acquits himself admirably on the blistering “Tripwire.” Taking up the latter half of the decade LA’s Trabantscrank the psychedelic side of sixties instrumentals with “Mantra.” Not to any Hendrix or Clapton excess, mind you. There is still are recognizable melody all the way through, even if things do get hazy in the final third.
Nobody needs the last word on this collection of uber cool and hooky instrumentals. Just hit play and let the hooks do the talking.
Word hit the interweb last week that a new Nick Lowe album would arrive this coming September, the pub rock/pop rock veteran’s first album of new material since 2011’s That Old Magic and his seasonal sojourn on 2013’s Quality Street. The album cover for the to-be-released Indoor Safari lovingly recreates a mid-1960s stylized photo shoot, complete with hip fonts and a retro record design. But if you dip into the album’s proposed song order you might notice something familiar – nearly every song has already seen a public release via various EPs and extended singles that have come out over the past half decade. So this ‘new’ album really only contains just two genuinely new tracks, “Went To A Party” and “Jet Pac Boomerang.” The former is Nick doing his Cowboy Outfit era thing, a bit rockabilly in a 1980s sort of way. Los Straightjackets sound great on this track and the others that will appear on this LP, putting their considerable talents to work adding some welcome pep to Nick’s urbane performance. So, if truth be told, you can nick just about this whole album right now just by sorting through all these recent Nick and the Straightjacket EPs that have been coming out regularly. The only track you really have to wait for is the one with ‘boomerang’ in the title.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not really complaining. The songs Nick has collected for this new record are quality Lowe’s for sure. Personally I love “Blue On Blue” and “A Quiet Place.” These two and all the other selections deserve to be featured on an official Nick Lowe long-player. You can advance order your copy on Nick’s Bandcamp and website. I know I will.
Today’s breaking news includes a few real newsmakers of one sort or another and others who should be. Stay tuned for all the hooky details.
When heartland rock reunited with more commercial pop sensibilities in the 1980s acts like Tom Petty and Heartbreakers, Greg Kihn Band and Bruce Springsteen stormed the charts. On their new album John Larson and the Silver Fields harken back to this golden age to my ears. Constellation Prize has the easygoing live rock chops of that era, sweetened with honey-dewed melodies and hooks. “Don’t Look Too Fast” is a great album opener, holding organ, piano and guitar in a dynamic tension while spinning out a cinematic sweep of heartland imagery. “Guilty By Association” puts its guitar riff at the centre of its rock and roll celebrations. “Everything’s Easy Until You Try It” reshapes an Orbison-esque guitar hook to drape a very Tom Petty romp. Then comes the should-be hit single for me, “Learning To Love.” The song rides an unstoppable guitar riff with a relentless drive. From there the album starts to vary its tempo and aural attack. “Start With Your Heart” offers up a bit of lighter AM radio-friendly pop fare while both “I Don’t Wanna Go Back” and “Fly Away” work that ominous 1980s pop vibe, delicately balancing dark and light melodic notes. And then there’s “Margot’s Gone Dancing,” a very different kind of poprock sound more akin to mid-period XTC. This just may be my favourite song from an album with a lot to like.
Melbourne, Australia’s Peter Freebairnseems like a stately gent. The tunes on his new album Silhouettes & Cigarettes exude class and an ‘I’m not in any hurry’ air. Opening cut “World You Choose” eases us into the album with a subtle hook that just keeps tightening its grip. “Say Goodbye” sounds like something we might expect from Paul Carrack, dialing up the blue-eyed soul and some sweet organ. Then “You And I” shifts gears to a more solo Paul McCartney vibe. What comes next sounds like some great lost 1970s Hall and Oates chart hit. “Crazy Love” has all the alchemy of that decade’s melange of styles: a bit of stylized pop soul, a disco guitar figure, and an aching pop melody that stretches on and on. Both “Home Town” and “Silhouette” are slower numbers but in decidedly different registers, one Don Henley California low-key, the other John Lennon sublime. But strap yourself in for this album’s closer because it defies everything you’ve heard so far. “I Got Lucky (I Got You)” is a strut rocker rooted in an uber cool riff that resolves into a rapturously melodic chorus, ornamented with theremin and a host of seductive background vocals. Hit anyone? This is it.
We’re not even half way through the year but it would appear that a lot of power pop scribes have already chosen their album of year. And who can blame them? The Lemon Twigs’ fifth album A Dream Is All We Know is breathtaking in its variety and command of 1960s and 1970s poprock styles. The record constantly shifts focus, from sixties English pop to California beach harmonies to 1970s commercial chart hits, but is clearly the work of one very talented band. Opening song and early release single “My Golden Years” sets the stage for what is to come. The track has the sonic dexterity of 10cc with perhaps a Queen-esque penchant for sharp melodic turns and a distinctly yearning vocals style. Sixties influences abound throughout the album with Beach Boys harmonies on “In the Eyes of a Girl” or The Byrds meet The Cyrkle on “If You And I Are Not Wise.” There’s also a very stylized English sixties pop sound coming off “Sweet Vibration” and “Church Bells.” But America gets a look in too with the more 1970s derived cuts like the Andrew Gold-ish “A Dream Is All We Know” and the keyboard-driven, Partridge Family-worthy “They Don’t Know How to Fall in Place.” The brothers behind this band have really got an ear for particular moments in pop music history. Just listen to how “How Can I Love Her More” captures the early 1970s over-the-top commercial pop, full of horns and strings and seeming vocal cast of thousands. And we’re not even done exploring how creative this band is. There’s still jazzy samba (“Ember Days”), Argy Bargy era Squeeze (Permanent Roses), and early solo McCartney (“I Should’ve Known Right From the Start”) to take stock of. And who would have predicted an album exit that hits the glam pedal hard like “Rock On (Over and Over)”? This is band worthy of the often overused attribute ‘a sensation’.
Sometimes it’s hard to switch horses midstream. Joe Scarborough has put out an amazing power pop EP entitled Big Star but you’d never know from the press. Crickets. Well that’s probably because Joe is not just any ordinary Joe lunchbox but the Joe Scarborough of US Congressional and right-wing talk radio and TV fame. And he’s not just any high profile politico but has been a pretty hard-right libertarian Republican figure for decades, though he does appear to have exited the party at the Trump station more recently. Still, it’s hard for many to square rock and roll’s typically progressive elan with fiscal conservatism. Not that Scarborough would be the first to straddle rock and roll and the political right, it’s just that artists like Eric Carmen from the Raspberries were often associated with right-wing politics much later in their careers. But hey, what about the music? On the whole it’s pretty damn good. This EP has a grinding Well Wishers hooky edge in its title track while “Contract With Bulgaria” has lyrics you might expect from this point of view. Still eminently hummable. The cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” really gives the song some power pop oomph. This EP leans into the horn section but earlier EPs like Welcome to the Monkey House and Freaks Love Freaks draw on Costello-like turns of phrase and melody and a Matthew Sweet pop sibilance. Just goes to show, you don’t have to agree with somebody to dig their tunes.
Working hard to bring you the power pop headlines, that’s our mission. With all these great tunes, who needs film at 11?
It’s been 40 years since Neil Finn closed shop on his older brother’s band Split Enz, ending their run with an underwhelming swan song LP See Ya ‘Round. Yet just two years later Finn would return helming a new band – Crowded House – that would far exceed what Split Enz had accomplished chart-wise. The self-titled debut Crowded House topped the charts around the world and produced a slew of hit singles, including “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” The band’s commercial fortunes may have ebbed and waned since then but their creative continuity has remained strong throughout three different periods that the group has been active. 1986 to 1996 is often seen as the band’s golden age, producing four albums and more than two dozen memorable songs. But their first reunion period from 2007 to 2018 produced two more albums of classic Crowded House poprock material. Now into their third phase the band have a brand new album entitled Gravity Stairs and it’s like returning to a favourite childhood home, familiar but pleasantly different at the same time.
Reviewers and Finn himself have described the new album as ‘dreamy’ and opening cut “Magic Piano” certainly evokes that. Then again dreamy is practically the DNA of this band, firmly established in the Temple of the Low Men era and threaded through every other release somewhere. So if you’re looking for that vintage Crowded House sound you can definitely find it on this release. Just turn on tracks like “The Howl,” “All I Can Ever Own,” “Black Water, White Circle,” and “Thirsty.” But there are some striking departures as well. Early release single “Oh Hi” shifts the band’s signature pop sound into new territory with some inventive instrumental choices and vocal arrangements. Most recent single “Teenage Summer” has echoes of a Bleachers sensibility while “Blurry Grass” throws up contemporary guitar tones that remind me of Vancouver’s The Zolas. “I Can’t Keep Up With You” honours the album art work’s riffing on Revolver by riding a Beatles ’66 blast of guitar hooks. And then there’s the obligatory Tim Finn duet on the touching “Some Greater Plan (For Claire).”
There’s always room at my place for more Crowded House. Gravity Stairs is another winning addition to the band’s musical family.
Some acts really put on a show. For them, it’s never just some songs. There’s a concept behind what’s there and an order to the proceedings that is every bit as important as the choice of instrumentation and editing of the lyrics. Today’s acts know how to take the spotlight.
Ken Sharp falls somewhere between the Beach Boys and the 5th Dimension. Except when he’s channeling David Bowie or the Beatles. Or Cat Stevens caught between his Brit poppy and pop-folk periods. His new album Welcome to Toytown features an astonishing 41 cuts, admittedly many clocking in at a brief 1-2 minutes. Still, that’s 41 distinct ideas he’s putting out there. One song does run a bit longer – “Toytown Suite” is a medley of three related songs that stretch to 9:43. Now I can’t possibly cover everything that appears here so I’ll leave 33 songs for your own self-discovery and give particular attention to 8 tunes that really grabbed me. Like “Just Hanging Around.” The flute, strings and ukulele are so late 1960s austere England, in a moody Moodies or Kinks mold. “In Betweens” nails that Beatle Paul at the piano. And just tell me “I am a Spaceman” is not a lost early Bowie b-side. “Listen” cranks up the handclaps and piano shots for a baroque excerpt from something off-Broadway. Sharp can even toss us back to the vaudeville era with the spot-on canter of “Got Your Number.” “Stuck in a River of Lies” sounds like the hit single to me. I love the acoustic guitar drive to this one. For a closer I pick the smooth Paul Simon-meets-Elliott Smith whisper vocal and low-key accompaniment of “When It Comes.” Set aside some time to spend with Welcome to Toytown. Trust me, you’ll want to stay awhile.
Bruce Moodyrevived his early 1980s recordings with a fabulous, sprawling package entitled Forever Fresh! to universal indie-scribe acclaim in 2020. But what comes after the belated happily-ever-after of releasing the songs of your earlier self? For Moody, that meant heading back to his old recordings cabinet to recycle even more ideas from his past. Yet on his new album PopCycle he doesn’t just echo his past efforts, he remakes those ideas, rerecording them while branching out from the sound and styles of his yesteryear. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty eighties. But this time around he draws from a broader set of influences from that decade. “I’m Gonna Tell Her Tonight” has a classic 1980s guitar pop sheen. “Shy Girls” has an energy I associate with early 1980s Hall and Oates vibe. “Little By Little” moves into a more pop techno direction a la a daytime Gary Numan. “Labels” is so that decade, both in sound and content. I love the vocal arrangements on tracks like “It’s Not Like Mine” and “Keep It Together.” Then “Turn Away” sounds like the should-be hit-single to me with its carefully calibrated arrangement. So ear candy. With PopCycle Bruce Moody shows the 1980s have still got a lot more to give.
What is Mo Troper trying to say with his new long, long-player Svengali? That he is some evil pop master dominating us with mesmerizing melody? Because I’d sign up for that. Gladly. This new album is certainly captivating, spilling over with 23 songs that punch up multiple styles and include a 6 part instrumental Svengali theme. Things kick off with “Bleach,” a bit of dissonant power pop bliss with blown speakers. The sound comes on like it is being stretched and pulled into shape. Then “A Piece of You Broken Through My Heart” offers a high definition contrast, all jangle clear and buoyant sunshine pop. “The Billy Joel Fanclub” is a bit more mysterious. Serious or satire? The ambiguity is so Troper. Light and dark constantly alternate here. From the rough garage Apples In Stereo “Spark World” and freewheeling punky “The Face of Kindness” to sweet sweeping seventies pop numbers like “You Always Loved Me” and “You Can Call Me Your Baby.” And then there’s the showstopper, “For You To Sing.” The melodic arc on this tune has a magnetic pull that insists on an instant replay. But I’m also charmed by the breezy rollicking flow of “Like I Do.”
As you can hear, underneath all the high production trappings are some great songs. Enjoy the show over and over again via the artist hyperlinks. You don’t even have to buy a ticket (but that would be nice).
Poprock Record 