Category: Highly Recommended by Powerpopaholic

 Ten albums later, Canadian rock four-piece Sloan are still pumping out tracks for their latest release “Parallel Play”. A follow-up to their epic 30-song LP Never “Hear the End of It”, this album finds the group crams the creativity into just thirteen tracks. According to the band, the title Parallel Play refers to the behaviour observed in young children in which they enjoy pursuing independent activities in the company of other tikes, which mirrors the Halifax group’s own intrapersonal songwriting dynamics to a tee. The rockin’ opening “Believe in Me” is classic Sloan with wild keyboards and a killer bassline driving the melody. next up is the harmnoius “Cheap Champaign” with a driving piano and “Ba-ba-da” vocals. “All I Am Is all You’re Not” is highly reminicent of the classic “Navy Blues” album, it leads to the highly charged punk pop of “Emergency 911” and the cocky “Burn For It” seems a bit of Iggy Pop strut has infected these tracks. And that’s a good thing. “Living the Dream” opens with a bit of “Here comes The Sun” and the ooh-ahhs vocals are part of that classic Sloan sound. Sloan’s approach utilizes the classic seventies rock techniques better than anybody else out there. As always the lush guitar strums lead the hooks in the Dylanesque “Down in the Basement” and the beat lead anti-war song “If I Could Change Your Mind.” One of the best songs here is the middle age rocker anthem “I’m Not A Kid Anymore” with those killer riffs penetrating your brain at every turn. No bad tracks here either – Sloan fans don’t miss this one.

The Sloan web site | My Space | Kool Kat Musik

Get a FREE download of “I’m Not A Kid Anymore” (MP3) or stream the entire album at YepRoc.

Chewy Marble was formed by Wondermints bassist Brian Kassan in 1995 and the first two albums of the band did not stray far from the Wondermints tree, with Beatlesque melodies and sunny pop harmonies in it’s self-titled debut and the 2001 follow up “Bowl of Surreal.” Over the next six years, Brian wrote songs for “Modulations” and enlisted Nelson Bragg of Brian’s Wilson’s touring band and others to update the sound. Lots of stylistic variety here. Less pop and closer to traditional rock, the opener “She Roxx” has the hooks that make this a cut above. The clean power pop melody shine on “Cross Hatched World” with those wonderful choruses sure to please fans of the previous albums. The follow up “Somewhere Else” takes a psychedelic turn, as it resembles a track from The Pillbugs. Midway through the tracks, the tone changes and it’s not all sunshine, but a variety of personal reflections as illustrated by “Black and White” with it’s compelling lyrics and guitar breaks. Fans of Alan Parsons Project will appreciate the melodic tones combined with the adult subject matter. The shuffle of the ballad “Flicker” plays like a sober Syd Barrett seeing time pass by. This theme continues on “My Monster” and the poignant ballad “Hey Dad” is a perfect Father’s Day song. The album ender “Clutter” is another heart felt narrative from the point of view of a pack rat, and one of my favorites on this album. It opens with the lyric, “The more I collect, I can’t throw away…” when it comes to music I can identify with that.

My Space | CD Baby | Kool Kat Musik | Not Lame

Cinderpop is a offbeat Vancouver power pop group with distorted guitar and rhythm accompanied by the sweet harmonic vocals of Kevan Ellis. The short title song “A Lesson in Science” has a Beatles vibe, that leads into “Speechless” a full indie mid tempo guitar song with a haunting chorus that remind me of The Sneeches meeting The Left Banke. The style is very catchy as the album see-saws between guitars and pianos, but stays bright and fun throughout. With “Blonder” we get the guitars and spacey jangle that Frank Black would be proud of, and then those Beatlesque harmonies kick in. The next tune “Cinnamon Winter” is vibrant piano pop and has an effervescence that makes this band easy to love. Then out of left field “Speed of Light” glides by like an Eric Matthews orch-pop baroque trip. Cinderpop’s strength here is the ability to fuse together aspects of ’60s piano pop and 90’s guitar and bass effortlessly. The dream-like “Mary. All Messed in The Head” and “Latest of Five” uses a slow guitar strum and Ellis’ vocal to channel a Shins-like ballads that often refer to dark tragedies. The manic opener “Bumblebee” features a progression of synths over the guitar chaos, but still that melody shines through the dissonance, much like an early Radiohead track. Other than the strange effects laden “Bounce Me” to end the album, every track does a great job of drawing you into the music.

Cinderpop Site | My Space | CD Baby

Listen to “Cinnamon Winter”

My goodness, how this event has grown since I first reported James Deem’s popcast in January. The sponsor list is deep now and the concert looks to be a huge success – great job, James. I had the opportunity to listen to the Compilation CD which has tracks from every artist to appear on the show. It’s actually odd hearing the opening track “It Stands to Reason” by James Deem with lyrics, as I’m now used to it being a “theme” for the pop cast radio show. All the tracks here are good and some are exclusive to this set. My favorites are “Obvious” by The Saving Graces, “Brenna, You!” by Frank Royster,  and “Pretend” by Crisis. Other noteable tracks are the Pete Ham-like “Candy” by Steve Caraway and Spongetones-like “Tell Me What You See” by Barry Holdship. Other songs range from the aggressive punk pop of The Stellas to the folkie pop of Chad Mackey. Actually nothing too “southern” sounding – although a few tracks like “Let it Go” by U-Phonik have that REM style jangle and others do flirt with the DBs-styled “Chapel Hill” sound, especially power pop favorite Andy Bopp of Myracle Brah. It would’ve been really cool to get P.Hux in this set. “Careless Love” by Lindy Dobbins is the lone female vocal here, so at the next fest I would encourage a few more female artists (not such an easy task with this genre). Like an IPO compilation, you may not like everything here, but the ratio of good tracks are higher than average, and at ten bucks it’s a really good value for 27 tracks of kick ass pop music. Get this collection only at The Charlotte Pop Fest web site, and those who pre-order the CD will also get instant access to a digital download of the entire CD in MP3 format plus bonus tracks by the remaining artists performing at the event that are not on the CD.

Charlotte Pop Fest Website

Visit this page if you want to learn a little bit about the history of North Carolina Music Scene