{"id":423,"date":"2011-01-13T05:12:10","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T10:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=423"},"modified":"2011-01-13T05:12:10","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T10:12:10","slug":"cd-review-lannie-flowers-circles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/13\/cd-review-lannie-flowers-circles\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Lannie Flowers – Circles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I will readily admit it: I\u2019m a slave to the jangle. Give me a dose of high-energy, upbeat powerpop and I\u2019m yours (musically speaking). And that\u2019s precisely what happened when I popped Circles<\/em> — the latest CD from Lannie Flowers \u2013 into my CD player. Double-tracked lead vocals, trebly Rickenbacker-toned bass lines, Revolver<\/em>-era musical arrangement and a grab bag (in the best sense of the phrase) of sonic elements make Circles<\/em> a fun, engaging listen.<\/p>\n

Melodically Circles<\/em> doesn\u2019t trade in a groundbreaking approach, but then that aesthetic is one best left to progressive rock. The melodies on this album all have a whiff of familiarity, and that\u2019s not a bad thing. Shades of 70s powerpop (The Nerves<\/strong>, Van Duren<\/strong>, Shoes<\/strong>) are all over the disc, but the more classic antecedents (the too-oft mentioned early 70s triumvirate) are clear influences too. At times Flowers sounds a tiny bit like a delightful cross between the late (Will) Owsley<\/strong> and fellow Texans Fastball<\/strong>, too.<\/p>\n

Lyrical messages like \u201cTurn Up Your Radio\u201d generally force listeners into one of to camps. Either they groan and roll their eyes, or they agree and comply with the sentiment. When it\u2019s delivered as well as Lannie Flowers does here, I fall happily into the latter category. Anybody who enjoys the Spongetones<\/strong> or Tommy Keene<\/strong> (to name two) will find themselves nodding along with these songs.<\/p>\n

If you dig this style, by the fourth track (\u201cNot in Love\u201d) you might well wonder if this is a best-of collection; the exuberant tracks are that consistently infectious. Throughout the disc Flowers shows that he understands that the right amount of repetition is an essential component of pop. So while his songs never once beat a melody or hook into the ground, the do sink that hook into the listener\u2019s psyche. And that\u2019s a neat trick that\u2019s harder to pull off than it might seem. On Circles<\/em>, Lannie Flowers makes it sound easy.<\/p>\n

With the exception of drums and a bit of background vocal work, every sound you\u2019ll hear on Circles<\/em> comes from Flowers himself. Yet the songs have that elusive live-in-the-studio feel, tempered with a careful (yet never fussy) attention to detail. \u201cAround the World\u201d deserves hit status, but then so do most of the tracks on the disc. It\u2019s not all upbeat pop; \u201cJust Like You\u201d is more of a moody midtempo ballad, but it\u2019s on less catchy than the poppier stuff. But more typical is the very Beatles<\/strong>que \u201cLooking For You,\u201d which sounds like a John Lennon spotlight number. And for equal time, the disc closes with the early 70-Stones<\/strong>y \u201cRusty Circles.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that — like all the other cuts — there\u2019s a southern tinge to most of Flowers\u2019 arrangements, so powerpop fans should be thankful we haven\u2019t lost him to the bland nether regions of what passes for modern country music. That said, anyone who digs Bill Lloyd<\/strong> (with or without Radney Foster<\/strong>) will not want to miss Circles<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For powerpop connoisseurs, Lannie Flowers\u2019 Circles<\/em> is recommended in the strongest terms. The rest of you simply have no idea what you\u2019re missing.<\/p>\n

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I will readily admit it: I\u2019m a slave to the jangle. Give me a dose of high-energy, upbeat powerpop and I\u2019m yours (musically speaking). And that\u2019s precisely what happened when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1276],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-lannie-flowers","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}