Breathless

After five albums as the Hurricane Lamps, Washington, D.C.-based singer/songwriter Eric Tischler reformatted his indie rock power trio slightly and re-emerged as the Jet Age. Breathless is a bit more restrained than the energetic pop-punk of the Hurricane Lamps often managed: though drummer Pete Nuwayser's hyperactive drumming still underpins songs like "Slope," his unrestrained overplaying is in the service of a batch of low-key, largely midtempo songs. The alternately strident and delicate "I Gave Up on Justice and Reason" bears striking similarity to the Who circa Tommy (which also finally provides Nuwayser's Keith Moon imitations a context that makes sense!), and the album's most energetic songs, "Out of Sight" and the delirious "Please Come Home Now," have a slightly overcaffeinated throb that recalls vintage Feelies, but more common are pleasant but unremarkable indie rockers like "Sometimes You Win, Sometime You Lose" and "Denny and Michelle." Breathless makes one late break for greatness with the inspiring eight-minute "Big Deaths, Little Deaths," featuring a propulsive lope that culminates in a brief but exciting old-fashioned rawk guitar solo, but it's not quite enough to entirely lift the Jet Age out of the "promising, but not quite there yet" category.