Our first new discovery of 2007 is technically a 2006 release, but since it didn't appear on CD Baby until December 20, I'm counting it for 2007, and it'll be an early contender for the top half of my first top 10 list of the new year.
Solid Ground, from Boston's Peter Baldrachi, grabs you right from the get-go with the staccato guitar riff and pure power pop chorus of the title track, and doesn't let you go until it's over. "A Better Place" and "Breakdown" follow with more of the same, and you'll probably already have given your credit card info to CD Baby by the time the 2-minute sample ends. But if you haven't, the midtempo "You're Gonna Miss Me Someday" probably will get you to do so. Other standouts include "Wait In Vain" (which reminds me of the great Aussie band The Chevelles), the Smithereensesque "Round and Round", "Start It Up Again" (I'm hearing some Eugene Edwards there), "Making Sense of Nothing" (which borrows the melody from Paul Westerberg's "Silent Film Star"), the jangly "(Are You Sure) That We Belong" and "What Do You Want From Me?", which has a Teenage Fanclub feel to it. Wait - I just listed every track on the disc. Gee, I guess they're all standouts.
Unfortunately, I'm not finding a myspace page for Peter, so you'll have to make do with the 2-minute samples of all the tracks on CD Baby, where you can (you mean you still haven't yet?) order it. If you can't wait for the mailman to arrive with this disc, it's available for digital download at this site for $9.99.
In any event, this is really a quintessential power pop album; if you were to look up "power pop" in the dictionary, there ought to be a picture of this disc staring you back in the face.
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