Va Va Voom!

The Toothpaste 2000 duo of Frank Bednash and Donna Esposito (plus revolving drum chair) has been honing its brand of Beatles-influenced pop for many years now, and with Va Va Voom!, Bednash and Esposito show how much they have it down to an art. Their skill is in the writing — they can make a hook out of almost anything, it seems, and they do on things as far apart as the upbeat "Spacecat" or Esposito's seductive lullaby about alcohol, "Drinkland." They're not afraid to borrow from pop classics, either — "I'm in Love With Who You Used to Be" owes a big debt to the Byrds' "So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star" and the riff to "If I Were You" comes directly from the Who's "I Can't Explain" before exploding into a jangly chorus. But there's far more to their music than appropriation. "E Minor," for example, is a lovely swirl of a song, and "Schoolgirl Affection" is as smooth as skilled seduction. Really, only "The Band Played On," with its tired chord structure, doesn't work; everything else is prime. Esposito proves that women can most definitely play guitar, not only some crunchy rhythm, but also some superbly inventive leads, while Bednash is from the McCartney school of melodic bass work, offering a powerful foil to the six-string, and making the three-piece lineup they use sound fuller. Toothpaste 2000 remembers when pop music meant more than boy bands and girls with bare bellies, and is making sure it never dies out.