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"Like Semisonic's Dan Wilson, Love-cars singer James Diers has an invitingly affable voice that gives even the prickliest of sentiments a polished, radio-ready sheen. For a band that is as ambitious as this Minneapolis foursome, that streak of accessibility is probably a good thing. [I'M FRIENDS WITH ALL STARS] ably balances expansive instrumental interplay and darkly dramatic hues ('Now We're Even') with more straightforward pop hooks ('Man of the Month'). The band's lyrics range from dealing with the tangled emotional yearning of adolescence ('Stammer'; 'Call Me Sometime, Best Friends Forever'), with Diers undercutting tension with tenderness and vice-versa, to getting a little worked up about pop-star packaging. The album opener, '24,' finds Diers delivering this succinct little salvo: 'Elevator anthems are all the rage/They have no scent I can detect/But they seep out on each airwave.' As if that weren't enough to submarine the band's chances of ever being introduced by Casey Kasem, the track unravels at a snail's pace that suggests what would happen if the Red House Painters dropped a few downers with 764-Hero and let the tape roll. Now that's guerilla radio." (CMJ New Music Monthly, April 2000) |
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