Nick Frater

Earworms

Big Stir Records

The album title is exactly that: really great earworms that will stay in your head long after the album is finished, and lyrics that will make you think about relationships for a while.

The music is roughly equal parts Beatles, Todd Rundgren, and Big Star, but ELO a bit more than the others. As a long-time ELO fan, I like that a lot. As good and as popular as they were and are, they never really got their due as music. While this isn't the first power pop/college rock band to use their style like this, Frater does it about the best.

The lyrics on this album take the dark with the light, nominally positive and happy, but subtly bittersweet and wry-humored up close, which makes the edge even sharper, none more so than the single “Bugging Out,” a happy, but confused, love song.

Power pop and college rock really have fused in recent years, and this album is a great example of that new blend. If you're curious about what college rock sounds like beyond the hit bands like REM, get this album. The same goes for power pop, and just for an album that is good listening experience.

Andrea Weiss