I came to the party a little late, last year I’d loved a cover of Del Shannon’s “I Got You” by a band I assumed was another young member of the power pop brigade the Brittanicas, they sounded like a cross between the Apples In Stereo and Badfinger. I wrote about the song and my Facebook friend Herb Eimerman told me he was the bassist for the band and pointed me in the direction of their 2010 eponymous debut album.
Suitably impressed, I patiently awaited the sophomore effort or a tour or something. And what I got was the delightfully titled High Tea though I won’t be getting the tour I don’t think. The Britannicas are the Dr. Luke of rock, they build songs through file sharing, Herb in the US, singer Joe Algeri in Australia, and guitarist Magnus Karlsson and drummer Stefan Johansson from Sweden. Obviously, the question that arises immediately is, whither band chemistry? Listening to the mix of Byrdsy zoom lens and country guitar break on Karlsson’s “Will Someone Cover Your Fall”, this is no Sweetheart nascent country rock but still some sort of group dynamic rethinking and the chemistry… well, ask yourself this, if I hadn’t told you the band weren’t in the same room, would you think they were born in the same studio and raised in captivity?
“More Like Than Different” and first single “Got A Hold On Me”, two Eimerman originals, lead the way: Producer Algeri is too quirky with his own material, they take a coupla spins to kick into high gear, but Herb is ear candy, sweet but not sugary melodic. Algeri is a rougher rocker, and also has a quirky sense of tempo, on “The Moment Passed” he zooms forward before slowly down and some electric guitar is thrown in and then it winds slow and emerges forward again. It is vertiginous and while it is translating time by definition, it is also strangely druggy. To use the classic terms, Joe is playing Lennon to Herb’s McCartney and Karlsson’s Harrison. The trio play off each other’s expectations, and their own (I could have sworn “Bleed Between The Lines” was Algeri) , they leave you wondering what is coming next and it is always worth the wait.
The twelve tracks on the album, three remixed from Three Sided Single, the Del Shannon cover, the first single, and seven brand spanking new tracks are all worth your while though I do have one problem with the band: I find their lyric a little generic. Storytellers yes, and good ones, but they don’t always match the intensity of the music. The just about perfect “A Shag And A Cup Of Tea” (except for the song title, of course) with a lovely break, tells a good story and well, it moves forward, and it has the whining sense of loss. A nice axiom would have made it a masterpiece.
Still, this is a superb better living through science for anybody married to high melodic pop songs. Dr. Luke should be so lucky.
Grade: A-
