The Young Meteors

Greg Summerlin's second album was well-crafted guitar rock, with plenty of influences from late-20th century alternative rock bands and a wee bit of Southern roots. There was a perky, just-so-slightly insouciant color to both the vocals and the tunes, which were poppy without being indelibly catchy. It was not, however, music of great depth and distinction, as respectable as it might be in most respects. There was a bit of an incongruence between the obvious compact pop aspirations of the songwriting and the fuzzy mounds of guitar chords. It's not that it created unpleasantness, more that it sometimes seemed like an artist who was waffling between pop sweetness and surly toughness. Points were deserved for a production that didn't try to make the songs more strident or poppy in an attempt to bid for mainstream ears or airplay, as so many artists of Summerlin's relatively straightforward inclinations seem to do.