Late June Roundup.

Plasticsoul-Therapy. It's been a long wait, and while there have been various new tracks included on compilations in the interim, Steven Eric Wilson - a/k/a Plasticsoul - has finally released the followup to 2009's Peacock Swagger, my #1 album of that year. It's a lot to live up to but thankfully Therapy is a worthy successor. Wilson produces a somewhat more sophisticated brand of power pop than the typical three-chords-and-a-hook band with influences in the vein of John Lennon, Michael Penn and Jon Brion. After opening with the lovely, languid "My Heavy Soul", the rocking title track kicks in, complete with an Elvis Costello-esque snarling vocal and a galloping melody. Speaking of Elvis C, "All Died Pretty" would have fit in nicely on Armed Forces, while "In Her Raincoat" recalls Cheap Trick in their more Beatlesque moments. Elsewhere, the album rocks more than previous Plasticsoul releases with the densely-produced "Come Down from Your Raincloud", the swirling psychedelia of "The King of Hash" and the revved-up "Monkey on a Stick". And the closer "Biff Bang Pow" sounds just as you'd expect, proving that good music really is the best Therapy.

Bandcamp



Cliff Hillis-Many Happy Returns EP. Death, taxes, and a wonderfully melodic new release from Cliff Hillis are life's three certainties. After his last full-length a few years back Hillis has been going the EP route, with Many Happy Returns marking his third straight which is just fine by me, getting 5-6 new tracks every year rather than waiting 2-3 years for 10-12. The highlights this time are the straight-ahead power pop of "Time an Evangelist", the whimsical title track which could have come off a Seth Swirsky/Red Button album, and "With All the World", a fine midtempo number that sounds like music made by a real adult. But really, all six tracks are great; even the one titled "Superfluous" is anything but.

iTunes



The Brigadier-Wash Away the Day. Another repeat artist to these pages is Matt Williams, known to us as The Brigadier. Wash Away the Day is his first new album in four years, and it's a welcome return to the Beach Boys-meets-XTC sunny British pop we've grown accustomed to from previous releases. The buoyant "I Know You're the One for Me Baby" fits that description to a T, and "Rainy Day Friend" throws in enough minor key curves to make it one of his all-time best tracks. Meanwhile, "Feels Like Something" rocks harder than your typical Brigadier number while the breezy "Keep Your Ego Down" will take you back to the 70s. This might be The Brigadier's best yet, and frankly I think he's overdue for a promotion to Major General.

iTunes

Bandcamping it.

More and more artists are using Bandcamp, which allows for full streaming of tracks, downloads (many free or name your price), etc. Here are a few that caught my eye recently:

A free download of Plasticsoul & Brandon Schott covering Big Star? You don't have to drag me screaming to that.



Chris Richards with another vault-clearing collection? Always good stuff if you recall his previous Pathetic History.



Daniel Person is a UK artist whose sound falls somewhere between Elliott Smith, Ryan Adams and Jesse Malin, and he's offering up "Wishing Well", the first single from his new album as a free download. It's a quality tune.



Nick Piunti of The Respectables brought Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms to my attention and I'm certainly glad he did. Some of you may know Allen from his work as frontman of The Friendly Foes, and this is crunchy power pop par excellence. Best part is that most of the songs clock in around 2:15, and the slower ones sound like Paul Westerberg:



Oh, and it's not on Bandcamp, but here's a free download of the new single from Fountains of Wayne, Richie and Ruben.

CD of the Day, 11/27/09: Plasticsoul-Peacock Swagger

We interrupt your Black Friday shopping to bring you an album you can't buy on Black Friday. That's because Plasticsoul's Peacock Swagger, the brilliant followup to 2005's Pictures from the Long Ago, won't be released until this coming Tuesday, December 1. But it's so good that I have to review it early, to give you that kind of pre-Christmas aniticpation you had as a kid.

Plasticsoul is Steven Wilson, a California artist who falls squarely into the Michael Penn/Jon Brion wing of power pop. His 2005 debut was such a treat that I went back and reviewed it even though I didn't start this blog until a year later. The followup was worth the wait. Whereas the debut didn't stray far from the Brion/Penn template, Wilson paints from a larger sonic palette here. The two-headed opener "You Sentimental Fucks/Life on Other Planets" answers the musical hypothetical "What would have Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey have sounded like if Lennon wrote it instead of McCartney?" (The fact that Wilson sounds quite a bit like Lennon helps answer that question as well.) Speaking of Lennon, "Cock Rock 101" is to, well, cock rock, as "Yer Blues" was to the blues, simultaneously sending it up and reveling in it.

We then come to as strong a trio of tracks as can be found a disc this year: "Champion Tragic Boy", which Michael Penn fans will love, featuring Brandon Schott on the chamberlin in the Patrick Warren role. Next up is "Fishwife" (which made its debut on the IPO 12 compilation), a jangly sitar-laden track that's instantly unforgettable, and rounding out the terrific trio, "Cancer", perhaps the definitive track on suffering with the Big C, complete with Revolver-styled backward guitars and sound effects in service of a great melody despite the subject matter.

Wilson lets us catch our collective breath with the gentle, acoustic-based "What Do You Know About Rock & Roll?" and the midtempo "Shame", which is borderline alt-country complete with pedal steel. This sets us up for the rocking "New Town, DIfferent Day", replete with "sha-la" backing vocals in the chorus, and the gorgeous "San Francisco", perhaps the best paean to the city since Tony Bennett's. Closing out the disc are the wonderfully psychedelic "My Three Friends" and "Rainy Season", a "Hey Jude"-styled number featuring a sing-along outro.

My only quibble: The disc doesn't include "Throwaway", the absolutely brilliant track that was on last year's IPO comp (#11). Not that Peacock Swagger suffers by its absence, but the now apparently ironically-titled track would have made a nice addition. And that quibble aside, I'll note that the race for the #1 disc of 2009 remains wide open in my book and things just got a bit more complicated.

CD Baby | MySpace

UDPATE (11/30): The official Plasticsoul site has the disc on sale a day early, with a special deal: the first 20 orders get a free copy of John Hoskinson's Pancho Fantastico, and you have the option of getting Pictures from the Long Ago for only $5 extra.

Listen to "Cancer" here, originally on another comp:

And a live video of "New Town, Different Day":

CD of the Day, 8/17/06: Plasticsoul-Pictures From The Long Ago

Since there's been a recent paucity of power pop discs that have caught my ear, I'm going to (temporarily at least) feature some overlooked discs from the last couple of years that warrant mentioning.

For those of you who yearn for Jon Brion's return to the studio for a proper followup to his only solo disc, 2000's Meaningless, I can't help you, but I can point your way to the next best thing: Pictures From The Long Ago, the debut release from Plasticsoul, a/k/a Steven Wilson. Pictures came out about a year ago, but kind of slipped under the radar at the time (translation: I didn't have this blog last year). It's a wonderful disc full of densely-produced, meticulously crafted pop that isn't afraid to go for baroque. Aside from the Brion influence, other prominent touchstones include the solo (and mid-period Beatle) work of John Lennon, whom Wilson bears the eeriest vocal resemblance to this side of Cotton Mather's Robert Harrison. If you think I exaggerate, check out his live-in-the-radio-studio cover of "I'm Only Sleeping" available for download from his myspace page; it's a dead ringer for the "unplugged" version found on the Beatles Anthology. Also, there's a definite Michael Penn influence at play, which comes as no surprise since Wilson is an active member of the Michael Penn mailing list, to which I also subscribe.

The song-to-song quality on this disc is outstanding, making it almost something of a seamless work, but there are some that are more equal than others. "Broken Bones", the leadoff track, sets you up perfectly for what's to follow with its Lennonesque vibe. The loping melody of "You Choose Me" has the vintage Brion sound, and "Over and Over" is perhaps the most rocking track on the disc and would have fit well on a Cotton Mather album. And while I prefer my songs 3-4 minutes long, and usually consider a track pushing 7 minutes to be in self-indulgent territory, I can't make that complaint about the album closer "Sleep Baby Sleep" which clocks in at 6:59 and serves as a perfect summation of the disc.

You can stream "Broken Bones" and "Heartbeats and Baby's Breath" at the myspace link above, and sample the rest at CD Baby. This may have not been in my top 20 for last year (although if I re-did it today, who knows?), but if you missed it the first time around, you're in for a real treat today.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that this disc is available on eMusic.