The Lovetones - Dimensions (2008)

Four albums into their career and the Lovetones have managed the hard-to-do trick of finding a new pace and style for their engaging approach without losing the spark they had to start with -- if Matt Tow and company are still happily worshipping at the altar of post-Beatles psych/pop that prioritizes melody over shadowy freakouts, the Lovetones have nonetheless found their own niche and, even more importantly, developed it. The soft kick of a song like "Two of a Kind," with an engaging verse and a great solo break, and the wedding of an understated melody with a winning title like "A New Low in Getting High" are two of the highlights that show both the boundaries of their style, and their abilities with it. (Then there's "Love and Redemption," which might actually be more of a Byrds crossed with Michael Nesmith salute, and why not?) If any more recent band might actually be their role model, it would be fellow Australians the Church -- not so much in terms of sound as in finding ways to approach familiar music and sonics in new fashions suitable to where the bandmembers are at the time (and, perhaps, their audience as well). On this level, it's perhaps telling to hear the Lovetones start off with what might be one of the best mid-'70s Pink Floyd tributes around, "Moonlit Suite (Her Room)," all open-ended guitar soloing and steady drumming and whooshing keyboards. Meanwhile, other songs like "Look at the Waves," with a careful, majestic flow accentuated by just the right amount of Mellotron on the break, and both versions of "Journeyman" (the second being a bonus remix by longtime Lovetones ally Anton Newcombe), keep all the good feelings going as they should.