Mike Finley “The Way We Are” EP
If you could come up with a perfect single for the end of August, then I nominate Mike Finley’s “Summer’s Gone” with it’s jangle-filled guitar melody and sunny chorus. It’s the highlight of the album, and I would love to here more songs like this one. Fans of The Rembrandts and the Gin Blossoms will appreciate Finley’s dramatic pop vocals on “Die Trying (Hard To Love)” and the somber guitar ballad “Good Morning America.” The ballad about an English immigrant’s appreciation is a simple and well written experience. “Love” is another inspirational mid-tempo song that skirts the edges of contemporary Christian pop. Finley plays it safe here, and that’s fine – but to stand out he will need to push those musical boundaries. Overall a good EP that shows lots of pop potential.

MySpace | Lala | Amazon

Kevin Hearn and Thinbuckle “Havana Winter”
Havana Winter is not a reference to Canadians’ preferred seasonal vacation; it’s the name of Hearn’s five-year-old daughter. Hearn is a pop veteran, foremost as the keyboardist of The Barenaked Ladies. But the songs on Hearn’s fifth solo album are linked thematically by references to weather and nature. It opens with a brilliant alt-pop theme “Coma” with a great call to action for the tech savvy masses “Tell all the urban sprawlers/ tell all the deep sea trawlers/ and the technological creep/ it’s time to come out of your coma.” The track has some help from Lou Reed on guitar and moog, although the solo toward the ending threw me off a bit. Much of the other tracks here are subtle pop swing (“On The Runway”) or sleep inducing ballads, (“Reeling” with alt. legend Laurie Anderson’s cello) but the true gem here is the hook filled “Huntsville, CA” about Hearn’s Ontario summer getaway. These few tracks make it worth a look, if not a cherry-picking exercise.

MySpace | Kevin Hearn’s Site | Amazon