Maple Mars – Beautiful Mess

Sticking to the previous album’s (reviewed elsewhere on these pages) humanly, non-synthetic musical concept, L. A. power-pop scenester and ex-Double Naught Spy Rick Hromadka, reveals the results of his most recent musical espionage.

Sure to please classic power-pop fans, this is a “mess” of classic Beatles-and-related references, starting from the opening Macca-through-Jellyfish-like bouncy title tune, and followed by the Badfinger-ish Listen, the first of several power-ballads, in which it’s Lennon that he leans towards more often, as first heard in Fell Of The Cloud, and later in the closing Apology, as well as in Between Two Worlds, with the latter being as close as it gets to a perfect sequel to 10cc’s I’m Not In Love, which happens to precede it.

On a noisier side of things, there’s Paralyzed, which might serve as a “replacement” as good as any to some of your fave Westerberg tunes, Breathe Deep, “revolves” back to the Beatle-type of popsike, by way of the Gallagher bros, and Nothing Changes is just as catchy as classic power-pop gets, reminding me a bit of the Texan genre-representatives, The Shazam.

It’s “getting better” all the time …

[Released by Kool Kat Musik 2007]

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