Make it Go by Slow

#9) Pernice Brothers: Discover a Lovelier You. Why the Pernice Brothers don't sell a billion units every time they release an album is beyond me. Perhaps they're not manly enough for the youth of today, who prefer their sad-sack lyrics buried beneath pop/punk noise. Or maybe it's not dour enough. Or perhaps the entire package is just too...perfect.

I could almost understand the last reason, as the majority of the songs on this album have been polished clean, and just about any traces of musical grit that would have derailed its focus have been removed. But this is what Joe Pernice does--he writes pop songs and breakup songs and lost love songs, and the band tries to make each individual song absolutely bulletproof. But if you like pop music, especially when bands in the 60s were doing it, then you should be listening to these folks.

That said, this particular album suffers a bit from front-loading. The lead-off track, "There Goes the Sun" (used in a Sears commercial of all things), is classic Pernice: a song about love and death buried beneath peppy music. That's followed by the somewhat more direct yet even glossier "Saddest Quo" (favorite line: "There's a train wreck / picking up survivors of a plane crash") and then the somewhat rockin' "Snow."

Things don't exactly go downhill from there, but those first three tracks are most certainly the high-water mark of the album. I'd still probably place the rest of the album above the majority of music I'd hear on the radio, but I don't really listen to commercial radio any more (nowadays, I just click over to SomaFM or Sleepbot). As was the case with Doves, I still think the Pernice Brothers' debut album was their best; also like Doves, I think you can't go wrong with anything from their catalog.

As I write this, work on the next album is well under way. Anyone planning on jumping on the bandwagon would do well to keep their site bookmarked. Since the band releases on their own label, there's generally an incentive to pre-purchase. Because I shelled out early for Discover a Lovelier You, it came with a free mini-comic! How's that for smart salesmanship?