Victory Songs

Just to get it out of the way immediately, Robert Crenshaw sounds a lot like his brother Marshall. It isn't just their similarity of vocal timbre, either. Robert Crenshaw, who used to play drums and sing backup vocals for Marshall, shares his brother's affection for catchy, guitar-based pop/rock of a style that first came to prominence about 1966, though it has had subsequent revivals in the early '70s (the Raspberries) and the early '80s (the Romantics) under the guise of "power pop." The vocals tend to be heavily echoed and harmonized, the guitars chime, the beat is propulsive, and the lyrics concern light romantic subjects. On songs like "Missing You More" and "Eatin Crow and Drinkin the Blues," Robert Crenshaw proves to be as accomplished a purveyor of the style as his older brother. Elsewhere on the album, he leans toward country-pop on such songs as the title track and "Take It to the Heart," the latter easily imaginable as a vehicle for the Everly Brothers and bearing a distinct resemblance to Gram Parsons' "Hickory Wind." He also turns bluesy on a cover of Louis Jordan's "Early in the Morning" and rocks out on "When I Get the Bomb." But these are only slight variations from his basic pop approach, which is consistently entertaining if never in danger of breaking out to become something more original or distinctive.