A Soundtrack for Sara
(Fuzzy Blanket Records)
"Being Blue": the "Down Under" for the new millennium? Just imagine it: mobs of thrift-store clad youth chanting "Minnesota's where it's at!" It could happen, and maybe it should--but it won't.
Sunnysmack, a band hailing from the under-appreciated rock 'n' roll mecca that is the Twin Cities, have created, in A Soundtrack for Sara, an album of maturity doomed to be ignored by the world of pop music--no new-found popularity for all things Minnesotan (see Men At Work and Australia) here, it seems.
Like the plethora of current favorites of the bespectacled, sweater-wearing crowd, Sunnysmack plays emotionally charged punk rock. However, the group separates itself from the pack through the loping, nearly folksy sound that a majority of A Soundtrack for Sara showcases. At times the disc recalls a less guitar-heroic Built to Spill circa There's Nothing Wrong with Love. At others, Sunnysmack trots down the track of emotive pop-punk run by the Get Up Kids, et al. One of the albums unnamed closing tracks even brings to mind the brooding instrumentals of Mogwai. However, through it all, Sunnysmack maintains an aesthetic just beyond easy classification--the very trait that makes A Soundtrack for Sara the engaging album that it is.
Lyrically speaking, A Soundtrack for Sara sticks to the familiar topics of love and loss. The album's slight departure from the formula (an uncommon sense of wonder permeates the disc) pushes A Soundtrack for Sara well beyond the average. Frontman Jason Eddie Nowak's voice, a raspy, high-pitched grasp at emotional expression, continuously celebrates and laments the mundane. A Soundtrack for Sara is a fantastically nuanced combination of punk-inflected rock tunes and wide-eyed lyrics that stretch beyond simple classification--a feature that will earn it little credence with chart-obsessed executives but ought to keep it in your record collection for some time to come.
--Brian Gettler