All Clues Lead To Meagan's Bed

While the current crop of loud, brash Brit-poppers steal the spotlight, Seattle's Green Pajamas slip out what will likely be among the best albums of 1999, on a small Australian independent label, to go unnoticed by the general public. All Clues Lead to Meagan's Bed opens confidently with the chiming guitars of the Big Star influenced power-popper "The Secret of Her Smile." The Green Pajamas take a well-worn sound, Beatlesque pop, and magically breathe life into it, making it their own for an hour of literate, articulate, and impeccably crafted songs. Each song on the album tells a story and evokes moods. The yearning of "Queen of Sunshine," punctuated with the couplet, "the moon is in the eyes of the Queen of Sunshine," would probably make Move songwriter Roy Wood proud, while keyboardist Eric Lichter's plaintive piano ballad, "Egyptian Snowflake," is a perfect precursor to the hauntingly exotic "Morning In Myra's Room." Those tracks turn the album from sunny, breezy pop to something more haunting. This culminates with the predominantly acoustic ballad, "Dear Jane," being punctuated by blasts of King Crimson-like distorted vocals and spiky guitar frippery. The penultimate track, "Pastel Summer" is reminiscent of a dirt road adjacent to the meeting place between early Squeeze and George Harrison's more mystical flights, while the closer, "Deep Blue Afternoon," brings the proceedings back into more familiar Green Pajamas territory with more chiming guitars, crisp percussion and an oh-so-infectious chorus. The very end of the disc is a fast-rewind to the beginning, reminiscent of Balaklava by Pearls Before Swine. All in all, this album is fine listening by a band that knows how to acknowledge its roots and take them one step further without being entrapped by them.