BLOODY RED BARON

APRIL REVIEWS

by Mike Baron

[linebreak style=”simple”]

NICK PIUNTI: Beyond the Static

Nick Piunti has hit the sweet spot in his career where he can do no wrong. Like Greg Pope, or Stevie Wonder in the early seventies, Piunti effortlessly writes one up-tempo killer after another. In popular music it’s all about the dynamics. Piunti understands the importance of crunching, earth-consuming guitars (see: Redd Kross;Third Eye) and listening to this record is like watching Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime–one hit after another, beginning with “It’s a Trap” and roaring straight through to the end. Not a laggard in the bunch.

Five stars.

PROMISE! (Got Kinda Lost)

Pop music is littered with the wreckage of bands who had great songs, great performances and great records but who somehow missed the brass ring. Groups like the Wind, the Modulators, the Parties, the Antennas, Phonograph more than deserved second chances. Some get them. This astonishing Colorado quartet released their Beatlesque/Badfingerish debut in 1980 and then—silence. Beginning with “Say Allright,” which borrows Lonnie Mack’s power chords from “Memphis,” Promise effortlessly unrolls one harmony-drenched hit after another. On “Back In My Heart” Curt Mangan lays down the first of many sizzling live-wire guitar lines. The Badfinger vibe is inescapable. I would have traded the ballads for more uptempo, but when the songs are this good who cares? “Hands of Luck” is some kind of classic.

Four and a half stars.

GRAHAM ALEXANDER: Repeat Deceiver

There are several pictures of Alexander on the album sleeve and they all show a different person but the confusion ends when the needle drops. This is powerful, hortatory rock, flamboyant and passionate, reminiscent but not derivative of Doug Powell, Bruno Mars or the Boss. Graham seems to have more than a few drops of Motown in his blood as well. “Repeat Deceiver” opens with an explosion, leading into “Romeo Blue,” a dance party march that would suit Bruno Mars, but Alexander’s effortless transition to falsetto also recalls the Jackson Five. In fact, this would make an excellent Jackson Five song. “Games” finds Alexander sounding like Jeff Lynne, and that string interlude is pure ELO. “She’s a Chameleon” is Huey Lewis meets Bruno Mars, with horns. And so it goes, one triumphant stadium anthem after another.

Five stars.

RYAN ALAN AND HIS EXTRA ARMS: Heart String Soul (Two Brains)

Ryan Alan is part of the Michigan Mafia along with Nick Piunti and Andy Reed, and has contributed to their records in the past. Alan has a cheeky munchkin voice and a flair for declarative anthems such as “Should Be Me” (“The song on the radio should be me,”) and “Born Radical,” set to become a punk classic. The record is a magazine of power pop bullets, one after the other. Sounds like a banjo on “Keep Me Around,” while “Young American Nomads” is a Who-like canticle with helixed guitars that build a huge head of steam.

An inside jacket pic of Alan shows him playing a Rickenbacker which looks like the same Rick on the back of Nick’s 13 In My Head.

Four and a half stars.

GAVIN MEE: Meemantras

Ireland-based Gavin Mee has a loosey-goosey pub rock vibe, good-time songs caparisoned in Beatlesque finery. His conversational voice half sings/half talks and he has a raconteurial air, an Irish Tom Waits or Rolf Harris. The songs are too laid back to qualify as power pop but they have plenty of charm as Mee wraps his shaggy dog stories in churning cellos “Mosquito Chicks,” or leads the pub in a sing-along, as in “Drop.”

Three and a half stars.

www.gavinmee.com

 TAD OVERBAUGH: Beauty & Barbed Wire

Swampscott native Tad Overbaugh recorded this record in Nashville and it sounds it. This is the type of music you hear every night at the Bluebird Café or in the Rayman Theater, heart-felt country rock with dynamics that owe as much to Overbaugh’s tensile steel voice as to the compositions themselves. A voice that is hard, flexible and musical and easy on the ears. The only problem is most of these songs occupy pretty much the same key and tempo so there are no great whip-lash moments that power poppers favor. “Done With This Town” occupies the same thematic and musical territory as Scott Miller’s “I’ve Made a Mess of This Town,” and Overbaugh’s “Scars Along the Way” has the same bones as Miller’s “My Father Raised A Boy.” As Scott Miller is our greatest living roots rocker this is not a bad thing. The songs may be similar but they are good.

Four stars.

[linebreak style=”simple”]

Mike Baron is the creator of comic books Badger and (along with Steve Rude)  Nexus.  His latest book is “A Brief History of Jazz Rock” – more on Amazon CLICK HERE.

He has written five novels in the last few years, all available on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/184-5348781-8830168?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Mike%20Baron.  Visit his website here:  http://bloodyredbaron.net and on Wikipedia here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Baron