Splashdown

Most of the songs on Honeyrider's second album -- the first, All Systems Go!, was a collection of previously released singles and additional material -- seem to end just as they're locking into a nice power pop groove. In fact, the entire Splashdown album lasts just under 30 minutes total, and it's a shame that producer Paul Sampson (the Primitives) couldn't get the band to expand the material long enough to include guitar solos or bridges. There is an overall retro feel to the album, which sounds like something akin to what the Fantastic Baggys, the Sunrays, or any second-rate Beach Boys-style group from the early '60s might have sounded like if they'd recorded their two-minute surfalicious singles in a power pop-punk style (circa 1978) instead. There are two cover songs. The appropriately titled "You Made Me Hate the Beach Boys" was actually written by Blake Miller, a former member of several L.A. groups including the Tyde (Miller's own short-lived group, Spectacle, imploded after one album on Island's Supreme imprint). The other cover, "Won't Look Back," was originally a track from the Dead Boys' lesser-known 1978 effort, We Have Come for Your Children. ~ Bryan Thomas|