Caviar - The Thin Mercury Sound (2004)

If you are a music addict, you will be scratching your head after you listen to Caviar's "Thin Mercury Sound"...genres, styles, props to the past and actual samples skip around like a warped vinyl copy of "Fragile" from Yes. The well-produced, slick and suave "Aloha" kicks it all off feeling like Beck meets the Killers. Current single "Lioness" offers great melodies, harmonies and guitar tones while "You've Got a Black Black Heart" sounds like a sinister version of Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark and is one of my faviorites on this release. "On the DL" pays homage to everyone tomcatting around the globe and thus, I love it. "Deep Down I'm Shallow" offers all of the wall of guitar sound that their predecessors Fig Dish did, but with the groovy backbeat of some Swedish rave band. Great harmonies and swelling guitar couple to make this the song that should be the theme for any "Shallow Hal" remakes. Personally, the clever penmanship behind "Where Are You" cracks me up every time...sort of like reading "The Catcher in the Rye" in the fall...I know I should be melancholic and remembering of my youth when I hear it, but instead I giggle like a schoolgirl while I pound my fist on the steering wheel. "10% November" smells as fresh as the lower East side curry that likely inspired it. Trippy, groovy and hard to further describe, let's just say I find myself 100% November! "Last Rays of the Sun" finishes the set up and it is as fine a pop song you will hear nowadays.

Caviar...the name evokes thoughts of wealth, smoothness and sipping overpriced Cabernet at the Tribeca Grand...well, these guys should be the house band there. A really, really entertaining release from beginning to end. A sincere nod to Blake, Mike and the gang. Buy it before some major label picks it up and insists on guest appearances and gold lame suits.