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Some pop auteurs are almost too clever for their own good. There are those rare students of the pop form who seem to completely understand it on a molecular level. Some of them are music critics (ha!) and a smaller number actually practice the form.<\/p>\n
Even more rarely, a bunch of these pointy-headed lovers of jawdroppingly-crafted pop music congregate in groups and produce music. That\u2019s exactly what has happened here. Imagine a musical collective that takes the best of The Mamas and the Papas<\/strong> and weds it to the smart pop of groups like The Orange Peels<\/strong>. The result would be what is described (without a bit of overstatement) as \u201cBay area psych-pop supergroup\u201d Agony Aunts<\/strong>. Featuring Allen Clapp<\/strong> of aforementioned Orange Peels and likeminded souls, the album Greater Miranda<\/em> sounds like a lost-lost sunshine pop record from 1968 filtered through a 21st<\/sup> century sensibility.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll find no grunge in these grooves. What you will find are a dozen tracks of melodic transcendence. Perfectly blended vocals and subtle (very, very<\/em> subtle) compositional flourishes characterize the songs on Greater Miranda<\/em>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s sort of weird is the way the lyrics often take turns toward darker territory. What else to make of songs with titles like \u201cNight Circling Sharks\u201d? But many listeners won\u2019t even notice; instead they\u2019ll trill along with the impossibly bubblegum-catchy songs. While not an excursion in nostalgia, the Agony Aunts have created a record that nonetheless looks forward and backward at once, not unlike Redd Kross<\/strong>\u2019 underrated Third Eye<\/em> album.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a high-wire act, producing songs that feel simple and straightforward but are in fact complex little compositions. \u201cReap the Plains Sewn\u201d is just such a tune, with interweaving melodic lines that overlap. \u201cLinus\u2019 Fists of Death\u201d is the Agony Aunts at their most Orange Peels-sounding, but even then there\u2019s the demented Cowsills<\/strong>-on-acid chorus of \u201cDeath death death! \/ Yeah yeah yeah!\u201d It\u2019s brilliantly, wonderfully twisted stuff.<\/p>\n Even when they\u2019re not getting all smartypants, the Agony Aunts turn in lovely music. With its subtle Rickenbacker jangle, \u201cLeland Manor\u201d finds them toning down the too-clever-by-half approach (which — don\u2019t get me wrong — I love) to craft a slightly more serious work. As with all of their songs, the little details are well-attended to. The listener can dig deep and appreciate those details, or let the beauty of the songs wash over them. Or both.<\/p>\n The group gets silly on \u201cAdam\u2019s Rib,\u201d a song evocative of nothing so much as Donny and Marie Osmond<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cA Little Bit Country \/ A Little Bit Rock and Roll.\u201d Again, the details are just right, from the spoken verse to the Floyd Cramer<\/strong>-styled piano.<\/p>\n Things take a turn toward the deeply bizarre with a song called \u201cRB & YM\u201d which sounds uncannily like the theme song for a nonexistent show on CNBC. Who else but the Agony Aunts would craft a song with a chorus wholly constructed of \u201cba-ba-ba\u201d?<\/p>\n If that weren\u2019t enough — and it most assuredly isn\u2019t: more please! \u2013 the tour de force of Greater Miranda<\/em> is \u201cNot Penny\u2019s Boat,\u201d an ambitious song that sets out to condense six seasons of Lost<\/em> into a three-minute pop song. And it rocks, too, sounding a little bit like very early Split<\/strong> Enz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Call it art-pop. Call it whatever you like. But don\u2019t miss Agony Aunts\u2019 Greater Miranda<\/em>, an album with not a single weak moment. It\u2019s pure pop perfection.<\/p>\n
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