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It seems like there's a lot of really great music coming out of the Midwest that is mostly flying under the radar of the trend-setting "blue states", which is a shame; if we hadn't received this disc as a promo in the mail, I never would have heard of this band, and that would have been too bad. Out of Iowa and straight to the front of your alphabetized CD collection comes A is jump with this, their outstanding and confident full-length debut. Their bio plays up their "avant-garde" origins, but I don't hear anything too "out there" on here; overall this is high-quality Death Cab-meets-The Smiths guitar pop with a distinctive prog-pop (think XTC) twist. There's some stylistic diversity, but that U.S. indierock-meets-Britpop feel pervades the entire disc. It's a warm, inviting sound with just enough twists to intrigue and impress. There's a psychedelic texture here or there, and a smattering of shogazerish echo and atmosphere. The excellent track "Waited So Long" has a 70s AM-radio rock sound very similar to the Pernice Brothers. The disc is surprisingly solid and polished for a debut effort. There's some great two-guitar interplay, and the lead singer has a really nice voice. The only pitfall I hear is that, while the individual songs are great, the stylistic variations do compromise the overall cohesiveness of the album a bit; however, the band does everything so well, it would be hard to tell them to stop doing any one particular thing in favor of another. This is really a marvelous album, and I can't wait to hear more from this band. (mike.03.05)
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