Even if you don’t know the term “power-pop”, if you are over the age of twenty you have no doubt at least have heard some of the oft-maligned genre.. Based upon the melodic inventions of the Beatles and the early Who mixed with the vocal styling’s of The Hollies and The Zombies – the rock subgenre known as power pop usually features prominent guitar parts in a full band context including bass, drums, vocals and often keyboards among various and sundry other instruments which usually play lesser roles than those I have already mentioned. Characteristics of the music include a hummable, exceedingly memorable earworm-like melody accented by catchy guitar riffs and melodic, short guitar solos. Songs typically last no more than four minutes and are often under three minutes in length. Well-known practitioners of the form include Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Raspberries, Weezer, Fountains of Wayne and The Rembrandts among many others.
Now, I have started with a brief history lesson in order to put The Beloved Infidels’ album into the proper context. The band essays itself as a power pop band with varied and unique instrumentation including some prominently featured ukulele, probably one of the first power pop bands to use the uke, in fact. To my ears, however, though the band tries to write very poppy songs, the music is not power pop due to the fact there is very little power present in their music. Without the bombast, the band sounds more like the soft pop/rock which emanated from radios in the mid-’70′s though with a much more novelty-type feel due to their use of the uke.
The first song starts out with some simple ukulele strumming by Jim Fisher and female vocals by lead vocalist Jackie Doyle until the drums and guitars kick in and it is on, as “on” as a ukulele-based power-pop band can get, that is. The second song starts out a little sprightlier, but is just as sparse, relying on the arrangements and the vocals to carry the songs instead of memorable riffs or exciting solos. On these first two songs at least, the lyrics are strong though nothing really hummable or memorable sticks out as of yet, song-wise. The third song ups the tempo a little bit and adds more guitar work than on the previous two songs but is still somewhat lacking in the “memorable” department and even though these songs have some “oomph” I have a feeling I will not be replaying them, at least, not the few I’ve heard so far. The drummer (Phil Fizur) goes a little nuts on the third song, with a jazz style drum solo where the requisite guitar solo would normally be. The fourth song starts out a slow and melancholy before picking up steam a little, but not much. Very wordy song sung somewhat clumsily by Doyle – maybe that was the intent but between the singer’s unremarkable voice and sloppy phrasing, didn’t really find anything about this song worthwhile. The rest of the album pretty much continues on from there with not much different going on. Not bad, but certainly not too good either. There are aspects that end up catching the ear, like a bassline here or a lyric or guitar part there but basically this CD never gets out of the gate, certainly not as a power pop album, and not really as just a pop/rock album either due to the lack of catchiness in the songs. And the songs are not cringe-inducing bad or anything like that, but the when the CD went off I could not remember one of them and never really felt the desire to put the album back in to listen to it again.
All in all, a very middling album from the band, who seem to be on the right track but just haven’t developed enough strong material to really stand out. The marketplace is filled with CDs and albums by bands that have a modicum of talent but just never find the X-factor they need to take their music to the next level. This could very well be another of those bands. To prevent that from happening, the band needs to dig deep and find stronger songs in which to focus their musical uniqueness. Their format and lineup could very well work if they found the right framework for it. For now, what I have heard sounds pedestrian. Hopefully the band will take what they are doing to a higher level for their next release and expand their strengths while working on their weaknesses.
Reviewed By Scott Homewood
