It's a Corporate World

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s debut album entices the ear with its bubbly melodies and tickles the mind with its clever mix of electronic beats, floating harmonies and organic instrumentation. Joshua Epstein (from the Silent Years) and Daniel Zott concocted these beguiling tracks in a Detroit-area basement studio, lending them a playful homemade feel. A Beach Boys influence is evident in the interweaving of gauzy and abrasive textures on “Morning Thought” and “When I Open My Eyes,” while the old-fashioned tunefulness of “Simple Girl” recalls White Album-era Beatles. Epstein and Zott offer valentines (“Nothing But Our Love”), tweak modern ethics (the title tune) and contemplate God’s mysterious ways (“The Fisherman”) with the same starry-eyed, slightly wistful air. In a timely move, they give Gil Scott-Heron’s anti-nuclear protest song “We Almost Lost Detroit” a bracing techno-funk treatment. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. approach their music with a puckish spirit, but also radiate a sincerity that makes their first album a charming affair.