April 2020 REVIEWS

by Mike Baron

EMPEROR PENGUIN: Soak Up The Gravy (Kool Kat)

A panoply of styles encompassing Supergrass, The Cure, and XTC, incorporating mad pop science and hyperactive guitars, that starts out rocky and gets progressively sweeter as it proceeds. “Go Guitargonauts” has just enough Cure to sound tart, while sounding like the theme to a Saturday morning cartoon show, like Apples In Stereo’s “Signal In the Sky.” Traces of Abby Road as in “Flaming June,” Byrdsian harmonies in “You’ll Be the Death Of Me,” antediluvian Move in “Inman, Wittering and Zigo,” perfect XTC in “Memoria Magdalena,” and Blood Rush Hour dynamics in “Public Information,” which is to say inventive melodic flow and super dynamics. And really. Who can resist a band called Emperor Penguin, or the title? Also, the jacket art. CDs are important. When people come up to you at a show and want to buy your music, they don’t want a download code.

CHRIS CHURCH: Backwards Compatible (Spyderpop)

I’m speechless. Well not entirely speechless. Combining elements of Foreigner, Jellyfish, and Ron Bonfiglio, Chris Church has created a masterpiece of stunning, uplifting rock, hard as nails, sweet as chocolate. The explosion of hooks and stacked harmonies begins on “Someday’s Coming Fast” and doesn’t let up throughout the whole album.

Like Rob Bonfiglio’s Trouble Again, “Begin Again” features swooning chords and wailing guitar. You can hear some “Hot Blooded” in “You Are the Thunder,” and Doug Powell ambition and depth in every song. “No Letting Go” has monster stadium guitar a la Def Leppard. “These Daze” is like a cascading mountain stream, rainbow trout chord after rainbow trout chord. The whole album is like that. Church is a mercurial guitarist who is always on, with echoes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, as in “Too Deep,” with those A/B harmonies popularized by the dBs. He’s also an accomplished lyricist, as in “Dumb It Up.” “She found him and she used him, to further her career. When she found that he had nothing, she put nothing in his ear.”

Thank you Spyderpop for taking the CD format seriously, with handsome illustrations, a record sleeve, and a booklet.

THE BYE BYE BLACKBIRDS: Boxer At Rest (Double Potions)

If architecture is frozen music, the Blackbirds’ songs are fluid Frank Lloyd Wright or Charles Haertling, beautiful, inviting designs in which you want to live. They’re edging toward canyon rock here, with the Byrdsian “Baby It’s Still You,” and “Words & Signs,” which recalls The Health and Happiness Show. The Wanderlust like “If It Gets Light” features a droning one note guitar solo acting as a counterbalance to the melody. They would no more write a one or two chord song than wear white socks to the Oscars. Credit Bradley Skaught with unerring melodic invention.

THE SPEEDWAYS: Just Another Regular Summer (Rum/Bar)

Hard to believe it’s just two guys effortlessly churning out one great song after another. Everything from the Knickerbockers to the Jam. “In Common With You” sounds like they’ve been listening to the Shoes, and the basic melody from the O’Jays’ “Now That We’ve Found Love” pops up in a couple places, reconfigured in a power pop groove, as in song #17, which isn’t listed on the record. The jacket only lists twelve songs. Echoes of The Cry! on “Don’t Tell Me.”