People Mover

Album review

Having established its mixed bag of a brief on Pop Bus, the Elevator Drops upped the ante with People Mover, dabbling in any range of styles to see what would work. With noted Boston producer Tim O'Heir helping out on the production end of things, People Mover still shows the trio keeps its tongue firmly in cheek any number of times. Some of the song titles alone are a total scream: "The March of the Kraftwerk Replicants" and the intentionally misspelled "The Theme to the Gary Newman Show" are two of the funnier ones. But the reference to synth pioneers isn't too far misplaced, especially when the first song, "Sentimental Love," starts. All resemblance to Blondie's "Heart of Glass" clearly are intentional, at least musically, and with that as a starting point the trio proceeds to duly have an equally amusing blast throughout. That "Coke and Amphetamines" should start with an approximation of the drum intro to Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" seems par for the course, as should the fact the song then suddenly turns into Police-styled reggae. Given that the Elevator Drops don't specifically market themselves as a comedy band, the feel is more like the members decided not to give a damn about making an individual impact and just decided to entertain themselves as they chose -- and why not? There's tender ballads about "feeling run down just like Eddie Vedder," there's jaunty horn-driven stomps, there are songs called "Unibomber vs. Hollywood" and "Tokyo Techno," which of course turns out to be a rock number. Through it all, Goolkasian's high voice wends its sweetly glammish way, Garvy J shows he can play darn good guitar, and all three members pitch in on various Mellotron and synth experiments. People Mover never changed the world, but as an amiable listen it's more than all right.

© Ned Raggett /TiVo