Fixed Hearts

Like their fellow Bay Area friends/labelmates the Parties, Oakland's Bye Bye Blackbirds (named after the 1926 jazz standard) write songs that recall an era when AM radio was a groovy guitar pop party, and they'd like to take you back there. They're polite about inviting you, too, as if they think nice guys finish first and get the girl in the finale. Do you think they'd apologize for genuflecting at a brightly ringing, polished/unthreatening, anodyne Byrds/Beatles/Monkees/Hollies/Beau Brummels/ Searchers/Buffalo Springfield alter? Maybe they'd have to, if Bradley Skaught didn't croon such accomplished tunes. Likewise, the jangly-chimey guitars and clean, undistorted, almost smiling production would feel tired if Skaught's easy sincerity and the group's harmonic gifts didn't infuse this modest, enjoyable upgrade over 2005's decent debut, Honeymoon, and 2008's swell follow-up, House & Homes. The title is pertinent; drummer Lenny Gill had his heart repaired (literally!) by surgeons, and his singer's parallel protagonists emerge from their own tenuous affairs with aching aortas pumping anew. Moreover, unlike many '60s apologists, the quartet embrace a Panglossian panoply of this period from when they were pups, cutting in country-pop, folk, and — heck yeah — a horns-laden opener with bits of Memphis soul saliva, à la the '80s Saints. Ultimately, these Blackbirds' friendly persistence shows they won't be eating crow. ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, Rovi