Bay Area power-pop auteur von Sneidern does
his sweetly melodic thing with a level of lyrical insight and emotional
engagement that puts him several cuts above your garden-variety janglemeister.
His
fourth album, recorded in New York with a crew of local pop luminaries,
features the same seamless blend of style and substance that made the
singer/guitarist's prior efforts so appealing, with unformulaically catchy
tunes like "Circles," "Split It," "I Can See" and
the Bacharach-esque "Don't Worry Now" achieving maximum pop velocity
while chronicling troubles relationships with an occasionally unsettling sense
of experience. ***1/2
-Scott
Schinder