CD of the Day, 1/8/07: Keith LuBrant-Searching For Signal

New Jersey's Keith LuBrant, who burst onto the power pop scene with 2001's Face In The Crowd, is back to give us yet another quality early-year 2007 release with Searching For Signal, due out this week on Kool Kat. Helping Keith out on this disc are Mike Viola and Jim Boggia, which is quite appropriate as his style on Searching For Signal is comparable to a cross between those two. Speaking of the help, Pete Donnelly of The Figgs plays bass on several tracks as well. Throw in the fact that Kool Kat is releasing it on their imprint, and the pedigree of power pop quality is certainly there.

So it's no surprise that say that the tunes come through - from the uptempo title track to the impossibly catchy "Too Late" (perhaps my favorite track of 2007 so far - yeah, I know it's only been 8 days, but the song is really good) to the Michael Carpenter-like "I Survived" to the rocking "Disconnected" to the Neil Finn-esque "February Day" to the wistful "Postcards & Memories", to which Boggia contributes vocals (and which would have fit nicely on Boggia's Safe In Sound), it's one solid track after another.

Intrigued? Then head over to his site, which has samples of all tracks; although they're approximately 30 seconds apiece, they get right to the hooks. And if you're hooked, get it at Kool Kat, where Ray & Co. have a great deal on the disc, complete with a 6-track bonus disc, and the CD itself comes with a code to download nearly 20 additional demos and unreleased tracks from the Searching For Signal recording sessions.

If the first three discs I've featured this year are going to be indicative of the quality of power pop coming down the pike for 2007, I'm going to need to get cracking on a top 200, let alone 100.