■ CD review
New pop music releases meet,
sometimes exceed standards
While Ditty Bops deliver
a varied musical vision,
Brennan lacks creativity
BY RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
Ah, the euphonic sounds of un
abashed pop music. It often gets a
bad name from certain quarters,
those that equate pop with mass
market corpo-trash not worth the sil
icone it and its singers are created
from. To these people I say
“phshaw.” Just as I believe there
should be heavy doses of grinding,
aggravating noise available for con
sumer purchase, I think the balance
should be maintained through the
sugar-sweet melodies of cheery pop.
That said, there should be standards.
And the latest release from Pin
back, “Summer in Abaddon,”
meets those standards by crafting
cool, moody, intelligent pop songs
through intricate vocals and instru
mental arrangements. Everything
about this release is a testament to
the power of good arrangements
and production values in creating
great songs. Everything here is in
tricately arranged and has been
formed into compositions border
ing on small-band architecture.
The album is not without its
faults. The band seems to have
found a specific sound they like and
they stick to it throughout the entire
album. Hardly anything rises above
mid-tempo and many of the songs
fail to distinguish themselves in any
relevant way. A little more eclecti
cism would have lead to an overall
better effort, but why look a gived
horse in the mouth? Overall, this is
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Courtesy
Pmback offers intricate pop music with intelligent lyrics and a dazzling production.
another excellent release from Touch
and Go Records.
The latest from Keven Brennan,
“God is a Mighty Gourd,” comes to
pop music from a different angle —
that of a deconstructionist. (I’m
thinking of going for the academic
triple crown and mentioning post
modernism and Foucault before this
article is over.) In an attempt to meld
jazz, funk, R&B and hip-hop with an
avant-garde compositional structures
and surrealist lyrics, Brennan has
created a unique musical vision. Of
course this doesn’t translate into an
interesting album.
Brennan suffers from a simple lack
of creativity. He obviously knows
what he wants to do, it’s just that
what he wants to do is boring and
trite. His lyrics flip between self-con
scious surrealism and rote love
lyrics, his vocals sound like Leonard
Cohan without the poetry and his
arrangements often stretch a minute
or two longer than anyone else
would consider necessary.
Frank Zappa and Captain Beef
heart stand out as influences, but
Brennan lacks Zappa’s humor,
Beefheart’s drive and either one’s
musical ability. He works with a
couple of good backing bands and
occasionally their talent makes up
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IN BRIEF
Royalty attends premiere
LONDON — It was more regal
than most movie premieres — two
dames and the queen were in atten
dance at a showing of “Ladies in
Lavender” in Leicester Square.
Dame Judi Dench and Dame
Maggie Smith, both 69 and co-stars
of the film, were given second
billing Monday as Queen Elizabeth
II was the guest of honor.
Proceeds from the event went to
the Cinema and Television Benevo
lent Fund, of which the queen has
been patron for 52 years.
Dench and Smith, who have pre
viously appeared together in “A
Room With a View,” portray two
spinsters who take in a mysterious
young Polish man they find half
drowned on a beach.
— The Associated Press
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