CD of the Day, 3/26/06: Brian Fennell (Barcelona)-Safety Songs

Although Seattle's Brian Fennell (who has named his band Barcelona subsequent to the release of this album) bills Safety Songs as "indie pop", he sounds a lot more like the more conventional singer/songwriter poppers than someone that, say, Pitchfork might give the time of day to (except perhaps to bash).

Not that there's anything wrong about that - in fact, Safety Songs is an outstanding debut in the vein of Adam Daniel (he of the great album Blue Pop), Ben Kweller, Ben Folds, Justin Levinson, et al. The album gets off to a strong start with "Just About Enough", a bouncy keyb-driven number, followed by another great driving tune, "Colors", which reminds me a lot of Semisonic's "Singing In My Sleep". Fennell/Barcelona can slow it down and not lose any quality: "Boy of Dreams" is a fine midtempo track, "Smaller Than This" is a splendid waltzing ballad, and "My Slow Motion" is a moody piano number in the manner of Ben Folds ballads like "Smoke" and "Fred Jones", while "Response" and "Numb" are almost anthemic in quality. An impressive debut.

You can stream three tracks, including "Colors" and "Response" at the Barcelona myspace page, and you can download a rough mix of "Just About Enough" as well as "Reponse" at his purevolume page. And of course you can sample them all and buy it at cd baby.