One of my favorite power pop artists, Greg Pope puts on his Monster Suit for Halloween. We mentioned before that he is making a film called Giant Monster Playset. This is the soundtrack album, and in typical Greg Pope fashion – its got a pile of great songs. The music follow the films narrative and like his last album Blue Ocean Sky, it has a fair amount of fuzzy guitar and pysche-pop pastiche. The faux Hendrix opener “Modern Plaything” gives way to a Soundgarden styled wall of dense guitars. A bit more impressive is the soft vocal of “Soulless Heart” that leads us to a strong hook in the chorus. And there’s more, “The Chance You Don’t Take” is another gem with guitar strum and double tracked vocal.

Some nice guitar work is part of the long intro on “Place On The Hill” and it’s  comparable with The Who’s Tommy. The 70’s band Free is another point of reference on “The Last Time” as the slow march builds up to a satisfying crescendo. Some of the tracks are just wonderfully atmospheric like the instrumentals “There May Be Thousands” and “Monster Chase.” The crashing cymbals on “This Is Goodbye” makes this mid-tempo love song bounces along its warm melody a la Badfinger. The song “Your Love” feels more like Robert Pollard’s style, but the underwater vocals don’t quite fit here. Since it’s a soundtrack and not a singles collection there are less hooks than in previous works, but any Greg Pope album is a worthy investment and will satisfy your craving for crunchy guitar pop. Can’t wait for the film!

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Rhode Island “Light The Windows In These Places Let Through”
Rhode Island are three dudes (Dave Brown, Jeff Johns and Will Turner) from Leeds, UK. They are unsigned and did all the work themselves… its starts with the interesting “War With Iran.” The vocals are a bit muddy, but the composition is solid with a bass driven melody. You’ll hear a little Bowie in “I Lost My Mind,” but the harmonies on “Articulation” are quite impressive, and fans of Queen will really love this. The album gets better as it continues – “A House” is a wonderful pop composition with shifting melody lines that reminds me of bands like Jukebox The Ghost or Field Music. The band plays with atmosphere on the instrumental “Franck’s Plantation,” and check out the album’s latter half with “Alcoholics,” “Good Morning, Captain John Lerro” and the very Apples in Stereo styled “Change In Repetition.” Although not every tune here is great, there are many highlights that make this band an undiscovered gem.

Ex-Norwegian “Sketch”
Last year the Miami band Ex-Norwegian produced a pretty good pop album that touched many bases and had lots of influences.  On it’s latest LP Sketch it takes a big step forward musically. Opening with “Jet Lag” it almost goes retro-grunge here, but Alice In Chains never had a horn section. The band has solidified it’s sound with the late 90’s and 60’s as basic touch points, and the crunchy riffs of “Smashing Time” showcases the energy and great potential. With singer Roger Houdaille improving his game we get to the best track here,”Sky Diving” with Shazam-like catchy guitars, and grand choruses similar to Sloan. I wish the whole album took this approach – but it then switches to a lo-fi “You’re Elastic Over Me” with bassist Nina Souto doing her best Liz Phair. The melodic gems pop up in spots here, “Seconds” and “Acting On An Island” are excellent psyche-pop tunes and the bleak “Upper Hand” is a proper counterbalance to the raucous Who-styled “Turn Left.” This is a band that is on the cusp of greatness, but they aren’t helped by the throwaway lyrics of “Girl With The Moustache.” But still… this is very worthy of your playlist. Fans of Weezer, Greg Pope and other guitar heavy power pop will definitely want to add this album to the collection.