The Alice Rose - All Haunts Sound (2009)

Genre : Indie,Rock,Powerpop,Alternative
Myspace
Buy
Tracklist

01. She Did Command
02. Waste Away
03. Agony Aunt
04. Maybe a Ride
05. Lady Lion
06. Slumberella
07. It's All Allowed
08. Rags of Autumn
09. I Know Your Ghost
10. Easter Anne
11. There's No One in There
12. Black Tide

WOW! A brilliant sophomore effort from these Austin, TX popsters! Like a handful of artists before them, The Alice Rose inhabit the area just outside mainstream pop, applying their eclectic reverence for music of the past to the classic pop formula and kicking out the kind of complex, yet catchy pop on which Squeeze, Crowded House, and Elvis Costello made their names. The band’s fresh, orchestrated sound and intelligent lyrics have many in the press hailing them as one of the most captivating and accomplished pop acts to come out of Austin in recent memory. While the similarity to 80’s Brit Pop acts is apt, the nature of the connection is not so straight forward. Strangely enough, songwriter JoDee Purkeypile (whose voice is similar gto Glenn Tillbrook's) has never owned a Squeeze, Elvis Costello, or any 80’s Brit Pop record. In fact, similarities to early Brit Pop icons come only from shared influences. The songwriting process begins with JoDee's demos containing his structured ideas, drawing heavily from Bob Dylan, Lightnin’ Hopkins, The 13th Floor Elevators, and The Beatles. The rest of the band, made up of multi-instrumentalists influenced by acts like The Funk Brothers and the Stax Records backing group Booker T. and the MGs, develops and refines the ideas into the orchestrated, dreamy, art-pop that has garnered them so many comparisons to those familiar Britpop treasures. What they really have in common with them is a reverence for the music of the past and an ability to create songs that, as NPR stated “sound both strangely familiar and utterly new." Think of the Rosewood Thieves (there are a lot of musical similarities here) with more of a Squeeze/Brit Pop slant and you're right there!