Jerry's Pick: "New Constellation"

"NEW CONSTELLATION"-TOAD THE WET SPROCKET

I've always been a sucker for a finely crafted pop-song with an upbeat, infectious hook.  Well, the latest song to feature those ingredients comes from four guys who once orbited an alternative universe several light-years ago.

Who could forget Toad the Wet Sprocket?  Okay, they may have been a bit "out there" when deciding on a group moniker -- (In fact, Rolling Stone recently listed TtWS as one of "The 13 Dumbest Band Names of All-Time") -- but you have to admit they did fill the Nineties with a string of memorable AAA tracks such as "Hold Her Down," "Walk On the Ocean," "Something's Always Wrong" and the classic  "All I Want."

Well, after listening to the group's first new single in 17-years, it sounds like guys from Toad haven't missed one-small-step and are back on the launch-pad with their best opportunity to rocket up the pop charts since Galileo first probed Jupiter.

"New Constellation" is a starry-eyed singalong love-song that touches on astronomy as an analogy… including a middle-eight that appears to be a reference to solar winds and, yes… black holes.  Lead vocalist Glen Phillips told Rolling Stone, "I wanted to come up with material that would respect our origins but also respect everything we'd learned in the intervening years.  The lyric veers from outer space to patron saints to depression to heroic gestures of love in a quick, three-minute pop song."

Please, give this light and tight cosmic composition a spin because I'm confident you'll gravitate toward "New Constellation" after just one go-around as I did.

By-the-way… "New Constellation" is the title track to a brand-new Toad the Wet Sprocket studio album that has a launch-date of September 17th!

Jerry's Pick: "Things Will Change"

"THINGS WILL CHANGE"-TREETOP FLYERS

"Let's go back, to the start…"

That "start" sounds kinda like, 40-years ago... a time when each of the five-guys in the band Treetop Flyers were even close to being born.

Treetop Flyers' first "official" single, "Things Will Change," sounds as if it was -- once-upon-a-time -- on the Billboard Pop Singles charts sometime during the decade of the Seventies.  And it's easy to hear their California harmony-laden soft-country-folk-rock influences -- from the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield to Poco and Manassas.  In fact, their group name was borrowed from a 1968 Stephen Stills' composition titled "Treetop Flyer."

When I first heard "Things Will Change," I immediately conjured-up images of the band America.  (An amusing Lincoln-Kennedy juxtaposition: America was an American group -- with just one British member -- who recorded their first album in England; Treetop Flyers is a British band -- except for the one American musician -- who recorded their first album in the States.)  I could also hear strong similarities to Firefall, especially in Firefall's cover of the Stills classic "It Doesn't Matter."

"Things Will Change" isn't exactly a brand new song for the guitar-based quintet.  Treetop Flyers attempted a more acoustic, less polished version two-years earlier in the UK without much success.  But, while recording new tunes for their recently-released first full-fledged album (The Mountain Moves), the guys decided to give the track a second chance.  So glad they did.  In this version you can hear the pain in Reid Morrison's soulful lead vocals, the harmonies are brighter and tighter, and you just can't beat the ascending consonance of those synchronous electric guitars.

With the folk-rock genre once again trending well, it would seem that this would be the perfect time for the Treetop Flyers to soar.  And with veteran producer Noah Georgeson (Adam Green, Strokes, Ben Lee) at the controls, these guys came through with a beautiful song that some will remember as one of their old favorites while they listen to it for the first time.

Jerry's Pick: "Demon Dance"

"DEMON DANCE"-SURFER BLOOD

 

(This may sound a bit macabre, but) I love Surfer Blood!  As freshman, this quartet of students at Florida Atlantic University recorded their first album (Astro Coast) in an off-campus apartment in Boca Raton using Chinese microphones and a cheap Pro Tools rig on an old Hewlett-Packard computer with Windows XP.  That honest and somewhat innocent garage rocker-of-an-album gave me two of my favorite indy tracks of 2010… "Swim" and "Floating Vibes."  And I've been waiting for something new from the guys ever since.

Now -- with major-label assistance from Warner Brothers Records and veteran producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Echo & the Bunnyman, Foo Fighters) -- Surfer Blood has released a new single called "Demon Dance" which proved definitely worth-the-wait!  Sure, they sound a bit more polished, but they still retained their quirky personality and some of that gritty, grungy, garage-rock feel.  You'll hear that in the song's heavy-metal middle-eight where lead-vocalist John Paul Pitts screams out a bridge over distorted guitars -- recently reminiscent of Dave Grohl's shouts on "Walk" two years ago.  And it all takes place over a contrasting subtle chorus of "ahhh's" that maintain the song's continuity.

Some of the words to "Demon Dance" may sound a bit dark -- "The hounds of hell need love and care, the hounds need organs and limbs to tear" -- but are instead a bit droll and, according to Pitts, inspired by Sherlock Holmes.   He explained to Rolling Stone, "The lyrics may seem cryptic compared to the straightforward nature of the song, but the song is about dishonest and cruel people I've encountered against the backdrop of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'."  (I especially enjoyed the band's artful glow-in-the-dark doggy reference.)

And -- like Sir Arthur's name -- Pitts' vocals lend a bit of an English feel to Surfer Blood.  That's why I have come to the conclusion that "Demon Dance" is the best British-sounding power-punk single not to emanate from Britain.

Although "Demon Dance" was just recently released as a single, you'll have to wait a few more weeks for the official unveiling of that new Surfer Blood album.  Pythons will be ready for uploading on June 11th.

"Excellent!" I cried.  "Elementary," said he.