Sunday's Best

Item: The Californian
Author: Matt Fink

The Californian

(2002)

Reviewed by Matt Fink

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Label Polyvinyl Record CompanyOpus2002

indie pop indie rock pop rock

Originally published at Opus

As Radiohead was the band whose last two albums have been cited as possibly sounding the long anticipated death knell of guitar rock, it's somewhat fitting that the legacy of their earlier recordings continue to inspire the bands who could be responsible for that never happening. And while Sunday's Best don't owe the blatant debts of inspiration that some bands working in their genre do, they certainly seem to be drawing more than a little from Radiohead's pre-Kid A work.

No longer towing the emo party line, they have seemingly freed themselves to create the brand of dreamy, melody-infused music that will ultimately distinguish them from the masses of bands with which they had been associated. Here, at least, the final product is a pleasing mix of irony-free guitar pop and angular indie rock.

With vocalist/bassist Edward Reyes' soft Thom Yorke-ish pipes, the group's vague, slightly confrontational lyrics create an alternately soothing and unsettling mix. Never as caustic as Built To Spill's guitar epicry, guitarist Pedro Bonito nevertheless launches into well-placed soaring, angular guitar phrases reminiscent of Doug Martsch on tracks like "The Try" and the darkly poppy "Our Left Coast Ambitions." Furthermore, their mastery of adding and subtracting subtle elements to build and decrease their arrangements' drama places each song somewhere between a ballad and an anthem -- a characteristic that they share with both Built To Spill and the aforementioned Radiohead.

At other moments, Sunday's Best seems to be clearly inhabiting the realm of indie pop, whether it be the big Superdrag-ish melodies of the title track or the almost Brit-pop of "Brave, But Brittle." The escapist and occasionally naively rhetorical songwriting is a similarly good fit for the indie soul of "If We Had It Made." Still, the band sounds most at home with the chiming guitar lines and airy textures that place them nearer to the Radiohead school of songwriting. The unstoppable effervescence of the melodies makes for a winning combination time and again.

All things considered, The Californian is a considerable step in the right direction for Sunday's Best. The band consistently displays distinctiveness and personality to add color to their already standout hooks and edge them a little closer to finding their own unique sound. With any luck, they should arrive at that point somewhere around their next release.