Nixon's Head
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City Paper Sure, it’s not easy for Philadelphia’s pop groups to get noticed; for the most part, their best shot at getting arrested is carjacking the Burning Brides. But Nixon’s Head have stuck around for the long haul, cranking out two albums in the last two years, after managing exactly none in their previous 13. (To be fair, seven of them were spent on hiatus.) The brisk blend of breezy British Invasion strum and jerky new wave rhythms on Take It! shows that something’s been brewing all those years; no matter how familiar the parts of a given song may sound (and at times, Take It! sounds like an explosion at a record-pressing plant) the way they fit together brings out qualities you’ve never heard before. Stalwart trio Jim Slade, Andy Rosenau and Mike Frank, with Original Sin Seth Baer and Rolling Hayseeds Dorothy Haug and John Popovics on board as well, craft a varied set of songs that pay homage to the past without slavishly recreating it. Even when they’re assaulting the younger generation on "Kids" ("can’t play a lick/ or write tunes that stick/ and their beats are flat"), they sound like the cheeriest curmudgeons in the old-folks home. All Music Guide Take It! opens with a call to action (and/or the dancefloor) called "It's a Beautiful Thing" that has the winsome charm of a Sarah Records single mixed with a Beatlesque melody that wouldn't sound out of place on a Sire-era Flamin' Groovies record. While nothing else on this lengthy album quite hits that high level, the second album by these Philadelphia garage poppers (only two albums in 15 years) is a solidly entertaining set that wisely steers clear of the usual power pop clichés in favor of a sound that's backwards-looking but not particularly derivative. Primary songwriter Jim Slade has a knack for interesting similes (the puckish "Home Court Advantage" is one of the better love-in-turmoil lyrics on the album) and catchy melodies, and secondary songwriter Mike Frank does a fine turn in the George Harrison role, turning in the quietly impressive "Visionary." Second vocalist Dorothy Haug could really use an expanded role in the band, as her wistful solo, "Get It Together," is one of the album's best songs, but main singer Andy Rosenau should be commended for ignoring the usual top-of-the-range whininess that occasionally plagues this type of pop. For its occasional shortcomings (15 songs is maybe three or four too many and the title track could stand to be a minute or two shorter), Take It! is a fine example of the pop underground at the start of a new century. — Stewart Mason Bangsheet ...Jim Slade writes tunes that vent about his life, as it is now, in modern times, not how he’d imagine it in an eternally teen rockroll dream. So when he gets goosy yearnings in "Yeah Yeah Yeah" he’s quickly brought back to the kitchen table by Dorothy Haug counterpunching "now you’ve got your sweater on and your well-kept lawn". While others call it irony, some of us call it our life... — Kurt Hernon