2006, Happy Happy Birthday to Me
The latest release from Georgia's Casper & the Cookies, The Optimist's Club, is staggeringly poppy; it's a refreshing blast of air from these masters of the fine art of 21st century power-pop. From the word "go," there's a quick pace set by the performers that allows a unique musical style to emerge from the instrumentation -- one that's open and allows for easy breathing, something that's unfortunately hard to find outside of the clamping jaws of modern music.
Halfway through the album (most likely during "Sid From Central Park",) it's easy to predict the quality (though not necessarily the content) of the remaining half of The Optimist's Club. Easy-going, relaxed guitar pop has a way of seeping into listeners' moods -- if everybody were to listen to Casper & the Cookies, perhaps some of the world's problems would be mostly non-existent (though it's doubtful -- The Optimist's Club is a good album, but it's certainly not enough to end wars and those infamously long disputes that so often dominate world politics, and it's most definitely not the place of primary songwriters Jason NeSmith and Kay Stanton to do such, either.)
The Optimist's Club is a pop-laden album that's hard to put down. With some incredible songwriting, NeSmith and Stanton demonstrate an incredible regard for their craft. From beginning to end, there's nary a dull moment in the full forty minutes that make up The Optimist's Club, an album that's likely to be one of the year's most notable.