It's amazing how much energy is exerted in trying to make the perfect Power Pop album. Still. Almost Sixty years after Rubber Soul and 5D made such endeavours seem unecessary. Or certainly the best part of fifty since #1 Record and Shake Some Action appeared to add the final full stops to that particular narrative.
But still they keep coming.Those ardent Indie Rickenbacker janglers. Heading up the slopes of Hamelin, almost wilfully ignorant to the fact that the children disappeared into the caves many moons ago, and the doors slammed shut behind them. There's obviously still a market for this stuff and probably always will be.
The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness are a labour of love forged from unusual union. A Spaniard and a Scotsman, both with track records in the quest for celestial jangle. They took their band name for this project from a Feelies tune appropriately, and have been churning out variations on Feel a Whole Lot Better and Chimes of Freedom ever since. Their latest tilt at the windmill is The Third Wave Of... .
I have no real objections to any of his. The Rickenbacker sound is probably my favourite guitar sound and the first three R.E.M. albums will remain always among my favourite records ever released. But the one thing they showed once and for all,is that it's possible to do something different with these essential ingredients than to try once again to write the perfect pop song, decades after Lennon, McCartney and Harrison already wrote it. Many times.
The Third Wave Of... will be welcomed with open arms and cherished by many. It's a good record, but I wish it had at least tried to do something else. Everything on here that The Beatles, The Byrds, Big Star and The Flamin' Groovies didn't do Teenage Fanclub polished off and wrapped with a bow with Grand Prix in 1995. Young Guv already released my Power Pop album of 2022. I don't really feel I need to listen to this again.
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