ARLO rocks. With a left/right guitar attack, like the KINKS.
And they sing really well, too, like they want you to listen, with lots of strong harmonies, but not strong like BOSTON, more like WINGS, or BADFINGER.
In fact, there's a lot about ARLO that reminds me of the ‘finger, in all the good ways. They keep the solos and soft moments to a minimum, and one could almost apply the mod label to them for their sense of brevity but they've got just enough early ‘70's in them to say they're more than a straight mod combo (you wouldn't find a track like 'Up' on Kinda Kinks).
These boys (Nate Greely and Sean Spillane on vocals and guitars, Shmed on bass and Tom Sanford on drums) are all about power pop with equal emphasis on both words, as opposed to 'heavily distorted pop' which much music labelled the former often more closely resembles. Which is good, because I was afraid that a CD called Stab the Unstoppable Hero was going to sound like bad Jethro Tull, and no one wants to hear THAT over the holidays (or anytime, really).
No, the power is readily evident from the first track, 'Little American'.
Each track on Stab has a strong melodic sense about it, which puts the band in the company of Teenage Fanclub, The Smithereens, and Weezer, but the ARLO boys just rock harder.
Which brings up the BADFINGER comparison. One could easily say that ARLO is derivative, that there aren't any hooks that one hasn't heard somewhere before, and the band doesn't do anything to break out of the four piece garage band formula over the length of the CD (with the same going for their first release, Up High in the Night). But what BADFINGER showed the world is that adhering to the formula is OK if it's done with conviction and energy. And ARLO does that, every second.
A track like 'Runaround' could sound like a reject from THAT THING YOU DO or even FULL HOUSE were it not for the driving performance. Likewise, 'Stoned' is an unapologetic rock shuffle, but the chorus REALLY kicks in, like WINGS did from 1973-1976.
Ultimately, Stab the Unstoppable Hero is full of relentless and effortless sounding hooks, none of which should surprise anyone, but all of which are delivered completely persuasively. Whether this gets the band more critical detractors than fans is anybody's guess, but they sure sound like they'd be a lot of fun to see live. |