The new album from New Orleans outfit The Electric Arch is power-pop but it's also stylistically more varied than that label usually implies. Brash and poppy, and lyrical in others, the tunes here on Out of Range are certainly the kind of thing I'd recommend to fans of this form.
Opener "Crisps & Crackers" owes a debt to ELO, while the even better "Postcard to Celeste" positively coos. The compositions here are elegant in their presentation, and if the stuff on Out of Range doesn't always punch, it all charms. Elsewhere, "Saturday Night into Sunday Morning" is a neat bit of pop business, equal nods here to The Flaming Lips and Fitz and The Tantrums, while "Can't Stand It" is faintly reminiscent of any number of things that Lindsey Buckingham recorded as a solo artist. While some of this, like "Moving to the Islands", suggests that the band might be aiming for the kind of acceptance that Weezer enjoys, The Electric Arch are far more successful on stuff like "Granada", a number that sounds a whole lot like Sondre Lerche's best early compositions.
Out of Range is out today supposedly. Look for it on Bandcamp at some point.
More details on The Electric Arch via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: The Electric Arch]