The Optimist's Club

The Optimist's Club is as blue-eyed and full of wonderment as its title suggests. Jason Nesmith (aka Casper Fandango) has once again furnished us with some inventive and catchy pop tunes that strike a nice balance between kitsch and cool. This album can teeter on the edge of ridiculousness, as in the over-the-top earnestness of "Kiss a Friend" or the manic drum'n'bass antics of "Barking in the Garden of Ill Repute," but the irony doesn't run astray. There's enough chunky percussion, enough old movie reels, electronic buzzes, toys, hammers, and aleatoric hodge-podge (subways, songbirds) to keep things gritty and interesting, even in the midst of all those clean, Fountains of Wayne guitar riffs and barbershop quartet harmonies. This album finds the band with a new lineup as Nesmith and Kay Stanton are joined by Davy Gibbs on drums. And for what it's worth, Stanton and Nesmith seem to have learned a thing or two about production since the band's last effort; the result is a much cleaner sound, with more (literal) bells and whistles. If flamboyant horn sections, ebullient declarations of love, spotless boy-girl harmonies, and true-blue optimism sound good to you, this album might be right up your alley.