There is something quite wonderful about this impressive mash-up of late 1950s Felice and Boudleux Bryant-era songcraft with the fresh and contemporary sound of Thompson and Jones on this recording. The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison – we could imagine any of them recording this song, but that does not in any way take away from what is accomplished here. Great plinky piano, ghostly background organ, dead on handclaps, subtle guitar lines, and two vocalists who really know how to entwine a harmony. “Never Knew You’d Love Me Too” is featured on the duo’s new album Little Windows, which mines a seam of old-time American cross-over country and western that can only be described as ‘delightful.’ This is all the more impressive when one considers that neither performer is a dedicated country artist (though Thompson’s catalogue does include various country songs and one previous dedicated country album), and yet somehow they have the authentic feel for the genre that, frankly, a great deal of new country lacks. If we still had variety shows, these two would be your featured Saturday night special guests.
Find out more about this great collaboration on either Thompson or Jones‘ websites.
Linus of Hollywood, stage name for Los Angeles musical polymath Kevin Dotson, has distilled a unique blend of 1960s/1970s influenced poprock on his four albums and various singles since 1999. And he has a voice that is often a dead ringer for Squeeze frontman Glen Tilbrook. The album catalogue might look a bit thin, but that’s just because he’s in such constant demand to do music for television and movies and produce and write songs for other people’s records to pay the bills. But what he has managed to put out is quality stuff, fully deserving of stratospheric success.
All that went before was enjoyable but 2014’s Something Good takes Linus of Hollywood’s performance to a new level. As 
You’ll never see the rock critics expounding on the seminal influence of Simon and Garfunkel to contemporary music – but it is there. Not because S&G broke new ground like the Beatles or the Kinks or the Who. Nor did they exude a counter culture rock persona like the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix. But they did contribute to the unique 1960s synthesis of musical styles, songwriting, and performance that would define the popular song in the decades to come. Paul Simon’s genius was in melding the authenticity of folk music with the more relentless hooks from pop music, cast against a dazzling array of musical backdrops (something more fully exploited in his solo career). But in S&G, his talents produced a unmistakable sound, regardless of the style of the material. That sound can be found all over the contemporary music-sphere.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog postings to bring you these breaking recent releases that run the gamut of indie/alt rock, alt country, powerpop and nouveau folk.
“David Newberry sings folk music with rock sensibilities. Or is it the other way around?”
Casting back through Newberry’s catalogue there are so many great songs, ones that touch on both the personal and political. I am partial to “4th Fret” and “The End” from When We Learn the Things We Need to Learn and “Easter” and “English Bay” from No One Will Remember You. But his 2014 EP Desire Lines definitely represents a shift in approach – now the record seems more than just a collection of songs and Newberry is clearly experimenting with his sound and image. Listen to these two starkly different treatments of his song “Slow”: one draws from his folkie electric esthetic while the other is a full blown poprock song. Personally, I think the latter has got hit single written all over it.
If Desire Lines and the radio edit of “Slow” represented a boundary-testing bit of experimentation, then 2015’s Replacement Things comes on like a new, more comfortable synthesis of his many influences. This is a solid record with great songs and a coherent, unique sound. Littered with references to his sometime Vancouver home, I’d have to call out “Coyote,” “Shiny Pretty Things,” and the haunting “Freddy Mercury” as my stand-out tracks.
Sure, when you first hear Edward O’Connell you get the Costello vibe, you get it bad (by which I mean you get something good). You might even think “Hey, this guy is putting out the albums I wish Elvis Costello would …” But the seemingly familiar Costello ring to the songs, to the vocals, to the turns of phrase is so much more than simply reminiscent. O’Connell has taken the inspiration and made it his own. And there is so much more influence afoot in his two albums of material: a bit of Matthew Sweet, a dash of Peter Case, even some Marshall Crenshaw and, of course, Nick Lowe and Tom Petty.
His debut record from 2010, Our Little Secret, is a solid start: a host of great tunes and a cover riffing off of Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool album and the unknown comic. “I Heard It Go” has a great turnaround in the chorus, “Cold Dark World” has wonderfully shimmery vocals, “We Will Bury You” is trademark Costello country, while “All My Dreams” sounds like a lost track from Imperial Bedroom. But the standout song on this album for me is the majestic “Pretty Wasted.” A real gem that exudes equal parts Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, with a lovely Nick Lowe lyrical sleight of hand with the line ‘She’s pretty wasted … pretty wasted on you.’ Pretty Wasted
Four long years passed before O’Connell’s sophomore effort, Vanishing Act, emerged in 2014, but it was worth the wait. The album kicks off with strong material in “My Dumb Luck” and “Lonely Crowd” but the third tune, “Every Precious Day,” is a master class in poprock songwriting: killer guitar riff opener, great Tom Pettyish vocals, with just a hint of Crowded House in the swirling organ and guitar work at the 2/3 mark. Other highlights include “Severance Kiss” (with another great guitar opener), “Odds Against Tomorrow,” “Yesterday’s World,” and “Last to Leave” with its exquisite low tempo atmosphere. “The End of the Line” deserves to be featured if only for its surprisingly aggressive guitar opener that then melds seamlessly into a super midtempo poprock number. But my favourite song on the record is the witty Nick Lowe-ish “I’m the Man,” a sad tale of a man who ‘should have seen it coming’ with his death-obsessed partner.
Let’s take a mellow moment and turn our ears to the acoustic side of poprock. Our four featured songs have a stripped down feel, unhurried, and certainly not cranked to eleven. The Amazing are an example of the neo-folk roots revival apparently going on Sweden over the past decade (I’m thinking here of other Swedish acts like The Tallest Man on Earth), though their most recent Picture You album expands their sound in a more poppy direction, both melodically and instrumentally. But “The Headless Boy” is more a throwback to their earlier material, a delightful, almost Donovanesque tune with some lovely harmonies in the chorus.
Radical Face have put out a number interesting records, including their just-released The Leaves. But the song here, “Welcome Home,” comes from their 2007 album Ghost. There is something otherworldly about this tune, the way the march-like drumming and swirling vocals combine, which is probably why they used it in French TV’s The Departed, a creepy enigmatic (but riveting) show about people who died but somehow inexplicably returned years later. And I love the cover of this album.Welcome Home
Last up is Colorodoan Shane Burke, a man with an amazing voice. Generally, a lot of his material would not really fall under the poprock mantle, but “I Go Crazy” has a great rollicking feel and a trebly guitar intro and leadline that threads it way through the song. A worthwhile boundary stretch to finish things off. I Go Crazy
I was minding my own business enjoying John D. Macdonald’s The Quick Red Fox when the protagonist Travis McGee pulled into Sausalito as part of his latest adventure and suddenly I was thinking of a song I hadn’t thought of for decades: Diesel’s “Sausalito Summernight.” I distinctly remember hearing this song on the radio in 1981 and playing it at some of the first high school dances I deejayed for a mobile sound company. Diesel joined the lonely ranks of Dutch hitmakers in the United States, groups like the Shocking Blue (“Venus”) and Golden Earring (“Radar Love,” “Twilight Zone”). Looking back now, the song sounds incredibly tightly focused and executed – the addictive lead line that propels the song never lets up, the multilayered vocals are drenched in reverb, and so on. It’s like a soft drink that is just too sweet. But I still love it.
Portage and Main is a downtown Winnipeg intersection, which turned 150 years old just last month. Portage and Main, the band, reside in Vancouver and sport a laid-back country feel on a lot of their material but “Better Man” breaks out from the pack with a Blue Rodeo-like punch: great organ, super electric guitar lines, catchy tune.
Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon territory and the largest town in Canada’s north. It boasts 20 hours of sunlight on summer days. Whitehorse, the band, can be found in Hamilton, Ontario, offering up a sound that borrows from roots and vintage 1950s twang electric guitar but with songs that defy categorization. “Sweet Disaster” is from their 2015 Leave No Bridge Unburned album: a cool mood piece that builds from some sparse drums, piano and rumbly electric guitar into a breakout chorus.
Django Django caught my ear for their totally unique songs and sound – one part New Order bass synth, another part oddly retuned Brothers Four vocals, strung together with some killer Ventures-like guitar lines. It all sounds vaguely familiar while being completely original. It is hard to single out just a few songs to feature from their records, despite the fact that it is still a rather sparse catalogue (just two albums, an EP, and some remixes).
Everything Everything are another band with a unique sound that attend closely to songwriting, taking songs places you don’t expect. Their best material builds out a song from some interesting ideas, putting them together and taking them apart repeatedly. Key examples would include “Kemosabe” and “Duet” from 2013’s Arc. The transitions between the verses and pre-chorus and chorus of the former are exquisite, pivoting on careful vocal arrangements and the word ‘hey’. The latter kicks off with a string section that reminds me of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” in general ambience, transitioning on the phrase “but I don’t know what’s real or what’s going on” into a very different sounding song, then shifting again into the chorus. 2015’s Get to Heaven continues to develop their sound with great singles like “Distant Past” and “Regret” but the song that really stuck in my head was the more unusual “Spring / Summer / Winter / Dread” with its intimations of both joy and dread. There is something 1980s going on with it, though I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.
Poprock Record 