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RollickingMusical isa minor masterpiece of rock production recorded by Milwaukee music veterans Mike Benign and JoeVent. The debut album by this new lineup of old friends is a carefully layeredeffort that never loses the organic sound of a rock band, a tip of the hat onmany tracks to the influence of George Martin and kindred spirits from the late‘60s. “So Easily Sold,” for example, sounds a little like a deep cut from BadFinger.
The songs themselves are entirely the work ofBenign, a writer of elliptical vignettes grounded in the ‘80s style of Squeezeand Crowded House with many wry wrinkles in the lyrics. And yet the productionand arrangements continually allude to an earlier period, complete withBeatlesque harmonies and the icy whisper of Tyler Traband’s melotron. Perhapsthe album’s most brilliant track, “The Soothing Sounds of Seals and Crofts,” isan insomniac’s nightmare at the edge of fuzzy psychedelia, an insistent beatdrumming home the anxiety of sleeplessness.
