The Afternoons are a Cardiff, UK band that uses smooth vocal harmonies and percussion to get the point across. Richard Griffiths vocal style sounds a lot like Ray Davies. The Afternoons are a perfect pop combination of Belle and Sebastian and/or The Shins with the Kinks guitars and lyrical Britishness. The fourth album, “Sweet Action” builds on the previous success of “Rocket Summer” with more bouncy pop hooks than ever. “High Summer Lover” and “Giving Up On You” are excellent singles with a combination of Giffiths and Sarah Rapis’ contrasting vocals. The instrumentation of the title track (“Sweet Action”) chugs along at a good pace. The cool synths get louder in “The Silver Age” and give me flashbacks of Echo & The Bunnymen. Other good songs here are “We Could Start Over” and the amazing “Don’t Look Back” where you swear the jangle can take you back in time – it’s my favorite track here. The softer tracks on the album (“Where The Arrow Falls”) are almost too neat and tidy and aren’t as successful. The ending track here is a fitting bittersweet finale, “Winter is Dead” is a beautiful slow echoing fade with guitar, harmonica and piano. I would love a cover of “Waterloo Sunset” here, but maybe that’s asking too much. Overall, a very good album, worthy of your ipod.
The Afternoons Website | My Space | KoolKat Musik | Not Lame
To say Andrew Sandoval is prolific is the height of understatement. He’s recorded and toured with Dave Davies (of the Kinks) and produced reissues of classic baroque pop and rock artists from The Beach Boys to the Zombies and loads of bands in between. In 2005 he wrote THE book on The Monkees and is a DJ with weekly radio show called “Come To The Sunshine” on www.luxuriamusic.com. So how’s the music he does on his own? I compare him to a modern day Curt Boettcher, using light melody and multi-tracked harmonies that even makes a song titled “I Hate Your Guts” sound like a gentle love poem. Andrew is a baroque pop specialist and has a delicate touch to each song similar to Micheal Penn. A good mix of Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks and Zombies are influences for Andrew’s own laid back California-styled ballads. “From Me To You” goes through several songs about the cycle of heartbreak (what else). A standout here is the Pet Sounds meets Everly Brothers tune “Something For You.” The lyrics are earnest, if sappy and “Something Warm” brings back memories of The Turtles best ballads. What else can I say? This is truly a perfect album “for a blue afternoon in your lonely room.”