The Junior League & Nick Eng.

The Junior League-Eventually is Now. Joe Adragna is back as The Junior League for the first time since 2015's Also Rans, and he delivers another fine collection of jangly roots-pop. As on his past two albums, Adragna is assisted by Minus 5 frontman and R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, who thankfully is recovering from a stroke suffered last fall. And in case you wondered where Adragna is coming from here, the album opens with the six-string bliss of "Teenage Bigstar" which of course sounds like the two bands referenced in the title and speaks to the power of music over the course of one's life. The languid "Say Please and Thank You" recalls latter-day Marshall Crenshaw and "The Wrong Kind of Blue" is positively gorgeous with its strings-and-piano backing and if Roy Orbison were alive today I'd love to hear him cover it. Meanwhile, McCaughey takes the mic on the piano ballad "You Didn't Miss a Thing", and although the general tone of the album is more subdued than previous Junior League releases, the uptempo "I Only Want to Begin Again" hearkens back to Adragna's classic sound. Another gem from the man from the Big Easy. UPDATE: For those of you who need physical media, Kool Kat will have the CD for sale come April.

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Nick Eng-Nick Eng. On his self-titled debut, Nick Eng sounds more like he's from Reading, England than his hometown of Reno, Nevada with this decidedly retro-sounding collection of 60s-influenced pop. "Reminiscing" starts things off in grand fashion, sounding like a track from an artist who was recording at Abbey Road in 1965 for George Martin when The Beatles were otherwise occupied. Speaking of the moptops, "On Cloud 9" has a real element of the early Fab Four in its DNA, while "Someday Someone" is irrepressibly jaunty (and catchy). And no 1960s-Merseyside-sounding pop album is complete without a story song about some older gent of the neighborhood and "Mr. Greene" fills the bill here. There's not a bad track among the ten on the album, and this is an early front-runner for the year-end list. The 21-year-old Eng may have been born 50+ years too late, but it's nevertheless encouraging to see someone under the age of 40 carry the torch for the sounds of the 60s.

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