Review Blowback: All Access Magazine – October 2007

Blowback ~ by: Slow Burning Car

Here’s another variation on the power-pop theme, from a San Pedro-based project that features lots of sound-effects in a collection of 12 textured tunes. You get bird-chirps and phone-rings and background dialogue, and lots of “ooh-oohs” and “la-las” also. The disk’s opening yell of “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum” before the opening track, “King Con” (featuring Tracii Guns!), might lead one to expect a more aggressive brew, but this effort leans more to Fountains of Wayne than Children of Bodom. Oh, a little bit of lead guitar busts in during songs such as “Formula I” and “A Little Sign,” but then a bit of Fastball-infused Jackson Browne bubbles into “Respect” – which turns refreshingly crunchy as it builds. Written and masterminded by a multi-instrumentalist named Troy Spiropoulos, the disk features a different ensemble of players on just about every track. Troy is more inclined towards philosophical and socio-political musings than standard love songs, to be sure, at times expressing his feelings with a frankness more often encountered in harder-edged bands. Troy is a melodic visionary, whose speculations can bend your head without hurting your ears. And the CD cover-image, like a roadsign of a slow burning car, is worth a chuckle.

Posted by Troy