Album Reviews

Last night during the intermission between performances of Brahms’ Third and Fourth Symphonies, I stood on the Avery Fisher Hall balcony talking with a couple I didn’t know who were probably in their mid-sixties and I mentioned that I wrote about “stereo” equipment. They reacted with surprise, with the husband exclaiming, “Stereo. Now that’s an old-fashioned term. I didn’t think anyone used it anymore.”

Has it gotten that bad? Has hi-fi drifted that far beyond the mainstream? Of course they had a “stereo” and even records, but it was all safely stored in a basement locker of their apartment building. When I explained the vinyl resurgence to them, they were incredulous to say the least.

So when the new Apples In Stereo album begins with a song exhorting the listener to “turn up your stereo…can you feel it? It makes you feel good,” I’m predisposed to like these guys, even though the song is kind of a goofy, lightweight “feel good” tune and the recording is so compressed and flattened that no amount of turning it up is likely to make you feel good, though the vibe is definitely up. Other tunes, less compressed, actually sound quite immediate and almost good, by today’s meager production standards.

Head Apple Robert Schneider writes great, upbeat, hook-fillled tunes, and the recording using “analog tape machines and digital computers” is well organized and nicely layered under the compression. There’s plenty of ear candy in the tracks provided by a multitude of instruments and more than a dozen contributing musicians beyond the core quartet of Schneider, Hilarie Sidney, who shares lead vocal duties in a buoyant pop style, bassist Eric Allen and rhythm guitarist John Hill.

Schneider’s vibe on this record reminds me of what John Lennon sounded like when he came out of his drug induced stupor and began writing upbeat ditties like “Starting Over,” though I’m not suggesting Schneider has Lennon’s gravitas (there’s a silhouette of John and Yoko’s infamous Two Virgins cover photo in the cover’s collage).

Laced with Mellotron, electric piano, organ, synthesizers, and other electronica the album has a vaguely psych feel, but the music is far pop-ier, bouncier and less mysterious than the album cover suggests.

There are sufficient production surprises on every tune to avoid predictability even when the melody and or base riff seems familiar.

Not much depth, but plenty of good vibes, more hooks than a bait shop, and for ‘60s veterans, acid flashbacks of the “good trip” variety.

The Apples In Stereo’s New Magnetic Wonder is guaranteed to put a smile on your face even as it fails to challenge you musically, and even though the recording is crushed, it’s not totally smashed and it’s done in a sort of pleasing way.

The ball starts bouncing at the beginning and it never touches ground through four sides of psych-fun. An endlessly enjoyable set, worthy of repeat rides.