Some quick hitters.

Catching up on my music backlog with a few words on some fine new releases.

Smash Palace-Right as Rain EP. Veteran Philly poppers Smash Palace are back with their first new music in nearly four years and it's a welcome return with five tracks of the jangle-rock they've been perfecting for the last 30+ years. Opener "It Happened to Me" is their best track of this decade with "Heart of a Loving Man" and the title track close contenders.

iTunes




Jeremy Fetzer-Wisdom of the Octopus EP. This 3-song EP was released in the fall of 2017 and I've been meaning to getting around to mentioning it here for about 6 months now. Fetzer is a confederate of Reno Bo (who's been releasing some excellent singles of his own lately), and Bo co-wrote "You Should Know by Now", a deliciously melodic tune that serves as the perfect example of his Beatles-meet-Van Dyke Parks pop. The title track and "When Will You Be Home?" aren't too shabby either with the latter being the EP's most baroque.

Free download from Bandcamp



Checkpoint Charley-The Great Jedi Mind Trick EP. Last month I was pleasantly surprised to see Adrian Whitehead back after a 10-year + hiatus, and now Checkpoint Charley is the next long-lost artist from the mid-2000s to return after wondering whether we'd hear from them again. Last heard from in 2005 with the heavily Jellyfish-influenced Songs One Through Twelve, these Tennessee poppers are back with a 4-song EP about the Star Wars universe. And the good news is that they have an Indiegogo crowdfunder for the proper followup to the debut, titled none other than Songs 13-24.

iTunes



Dan Israel-You're Free. Minneapolis singer-songwriter Dan Israel has been going strong for a couple of decades now, and I've featured him on the site before. On album #14 he serves up another winning combination of Tom Petty-influenced heartland rock and Dylanesque folk-rock. Top cuts: the title track, "Gets You Through It", "Someday You'll Say".

iTunes

Singles galore!

A whole bunch of artists featured on the site have released singles over the past month or two, so it's time to catch up.

Reno Bo-Smile Across the Universe. Rather than release a new album, Reno Bo's released several singles this year, and his latest is another melodic gem, with the A-side backed with the anthemic "Be the Change" and a mono mix of the A-side.

iTunes



The Zags-A World Away/Icy Red. Another two-sided single, this time from The Zags, who deliver their classic power pop in bite(or byte)-sized form this around.

iTunes



Wiretree-You've Got Tonight. Kevin Peroni has been releasing EPs and albums since this site began in 2006, but this a rare non-album single release for him. It's a catchy, piano-based number that's of a piece with his full body of work.

iTunes



Coke Belda-Operator (That's Not the Way it Feels). Fresh off an album covering the Bee Gees, Coke Belda mines the 70s once again with a power pop version of the Jim Croce folk/rock classic. Belda said when hearing the original it was a "clear power-pop song disguised as an acoustic piece" and he does a fine job of proving it.

Bandcamp



The Shazam-It's Doomsday, Honey! I missed this when it came out this summer in honor of the total eclipse, but this is the first new music we've heard of Hans Rotenberry & company since 2009's Meteor so it definitely bears mentioning. It's apparently from an upcoming album called Doomsday Hotel that's been in the works for a while so hopefully we see that soon. Meanwhile, enjoy this track which compares well with their classic power pop output of the 2000s.

iTunes



The Weeklings-Revolution Wonderland. In which these Beatles-loving popsters answering the question of what would a mashup of "Winter Wonderland" and "Revolution" sound like. So you get the Revolution guitar riffs backing the Winter Wonderland lyrics and melody and some Revolution 1 "shooby-dooby" backing vocals. Power popping holiday fun.

iTunes

CD of the Day, 6/25/15: Reno Bo-Lessons from a Shooting Star.

Reno Bo returns with his first album since 2009's Happenings and Other Things, and it's a gem. While Happenings just made the top half of my best of 2009 list at #47, Lessons from a Shooting Star will easily eclipse that ranking come the end of the year as the ex-Mooney Suzuki and Albert Hammond Jr. guitarist has crafted one ringing power pop anthem after another this time around. "Sweetheart Deal", the first single (as singles go in 2015), is a shoo-in for a best-tracks-of-2015 list, coming off like Brendan Benson fronting Cheap Trick. "How Do You Do" follows with no letup in quality as Bo throws some keyboards in the mix and some excellent slide guitar work from Sadler Veden for a track that reminds me of the ones Jeff Lynne once produced for Dave Edmunds, and the driving melodic rocker "Just Say Go" lives up to its title. Next up, the midtempo "Strange Maps" gives the listener a chance to catch his/her breath without sacrificing any melody, and the melancholy "And I Know She Did" captures the classic Big Star sound. These five tracks would be worth the price of admission alone, but then you have "The Brighter Side" (co-written with the aforementioned Benson) which is another melodic marvel, the Beatlesque rocker "Sleeping Sun", the classic rock of the title track and the Oasis-like closer "Somewhere There's Something". Power pop doesn't get much better than this.

iTunes

CD of the Day, 9/17/09: Reno Bo-Happenings and Other Things

The sideman gone solo power popper has become a bit of a cliche on this site (a good cliche, mind you), and the latest entrant into the field is Reno Bo. He's been a guitarist in both The Mooney Suzuki and Albert Hammond Jr's backing band, and now he's unleashed a gem of a disc that successfully melds classic rock and power pop.

The proceedings begin with "There's a Light", a classic anthemic number that finds the midpoint between Oasis and The Black Crowes, complete with majestic guitar solos building to a crescendo. "Higher Tonight" is straight-up power pop in the vein of Cheap Trick or a better Tinted Windows, the moody "Off Your Back" has a Tom Petty-in-pop-mode feel, and I can almost see the lighters being waved in the crowd during the big buildup of "Shine".

Elsewhere, Bo knows folky ballads as well - "Baby, You're Not Feelin' Me Tonight" provides a nice change of pace, while "Sugar Suite Blues" isn't exactly the blues but instead the hardest-rocking track on the disc. "How Does It Feel" rocks with swagger, and the breezily melodic "Here Right Now" is almost jangly. "I See Stars" closes out things in fine fashion, a midtempo pop nugget that once again features fine guitar work from Mr. Bo. If you like your power pop with more of a rock edge to it, you should know Bo.

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