Paper Tapes - The Lonely Hearts

In the first paragraph of the press bio that accompanies the Lonely Hearts' debut full-length, an overzealous publicist references the Beatles, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. That's clearly overreaching a bit, but later in the paragraph things come down to earth, with references to the Wallflowers and the Gin Blossoms. That's more like it. What the Lonely Hearts clearly love is good, old-fashioned American guitar pop -- there's no mannered faux-folkiness in their sound, no baroque flashiness in their chord progressions, no overweening preachiness in their lyrics. Singer Will Holland has a Texan's way of sidling up to a significant note and lead guitarist Stephen Barlow is more than happy to whip out the slide every so often, but the resulting sound is neither hiply retro nor derivatively rootsy. It's just American, and really, it sounds pretty great. It sounds especially great on the one-two punch to the midsection that opens Paper Tapes: "Passive Aggressive" and the sweet romantic come-on "Mermaid." "Love Comes Quickly" follows up with a greasier, more country-ish sound and then things settle into a nice midtempo rock mood for a while -- then they build up to a serious crescendo near the end, blowing off the doors with an anthemic number titled "War Brides" and following that one up with the even more inspired "Good Intentions." Just goes to show, yet again, that in pop music, uniqueness and originality are overrated: there isn't a single element to the Lonely Hearts' sound that you couldn't locate in a preceding band, and who cares? It's the songs that matter, and on Paper Tapes, the songs hit hard. Highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, All Music Guide