{"id":8498,"date":"2015-09-18T05:45:30","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T09:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=8498"},"modified":"2015-09-18T05:45:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T09:45:30","slug":"album-mini-review-pugwash-play-this-intimately-as-if-among-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/18\/album-mini-review-pugwash-play-this-intimately-as-if-among-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Mini-review: Pugwash &#8212; Play This Intimately (As If Among Friends)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/pugwash_all.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/center>File Next to: <strong>Fountains of Wayne<\/strong>, <strong>XTC<\/strong>, <strong>Electric Light Orchestra<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=ss_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=B0116CI5S4&amp;asins=B0116CI5S4&amp;linkId=L4YYVTLUVP6UJUSA&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nThis may just be the effort that pays off for guitarist-singer-songwriter <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=7335\"><strong>Thomas Walsh<\/strong><\/a> and his bandmates. The Dublin-based band has released six albums, including three \u2013 count &#8217;em: three \u2013 best-ofs on three different labels. Though critically acclaimed, Pugwash haven&#8217;t gained traction in the American marketplace. Until now, that is. <em>Play This Intimately<\/em> is their first album of new material to get a proper stateside release, and it&#8217;s filled to the brim with Pugwash&#8217;s brand of preternaturally melodic, catchy pop-rock. The group is often compared to XTC (they were on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musoscribe.com\/features\/andy_partridge_monstrance.shtml\"><strong>Andy Partridge<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s Ape label for awhile, and Partridge guests on the new album) and ELO (<strong>Jeff Lynne<\/strong> makes a fleeting appearance as well), but Pugwash truly have a style of their own. \u201cKicking and Screaming\u201d boasts one of Walsh&#8217;s strongest melodies, and that&#8217;s saying something. <em>Play This Intimately<\/em> is a winning balance of power and subtlety, of brashness and nuance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\">Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on <\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/icon_twitter_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" name=\"graphics3\" width=\"18\" height=\"18\" align=\"BOTTOM\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"1\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\"> Twitter<\/a> and get notified<br \/>\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>File Next to: Fountains of Wayne, XTC, Electric Light Orchestra This may just be the effort that pays off for guitarist-singer-songwriter Thomas Walsh and his bandmates. The Dublin-based band has [&hellip;]<\/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":[49,51,55,62,65],"tags":[1622,1754],"class_list":["post-8498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-omnivore-recordings","tag-pugwash","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498","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=8498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}