What If It Works?

After the release of Attractive Nuisance in 2000, Scott Miller quietly folded his band the Loud Family after eight years and five albums. However, Miller has long been a vocal supporter of fellow cult-hero smart pop songwriter Anton Barbeau, and the prospect of a collaboration with Barbeau was enough to get Miller to pull his band out of mothballs, at least for a while. What If It Works features Miller and Barbeau working with a handful of past-and-present Loud Family members (including Jozef Becker, Kenny Kessel, Gil Ray, and Alison Faith Levy), with the performances favoring the more straightforward side of the band's sonic palate (lots of hooks, plenty of guitar and rolling keyboards, not so much sonic collage). The two frontmen each wrote four songs and collaborated on one number, with well-chosen covers from Cat Stevens, the Zombies and the Rolling Stones filling out the set (they start the album with "Rocks Off," and believe it or not, it works). As is his custom, Miller's numbers tend to rock harder and feature tougher guitar lines and more intricate melodies than Barbeau's, but the latter is in fine form here, and his "Pop Song 99" and "Flow Thee Water" find him in superb shape, while "Total Mass Destruction" and "Mavis of Maybelline Towers" show that a six-year layoff hasn't dulled Miller's gifts as a writer or performer. What If It Works isn't a major addition to the catalog of either artist, but it does capture both Scott Miller and Anton Barbeau writing and singing very well, bringing out the best qualities in one another; this is a collaborative album where everyone involved seems to have been having a good time, and fans of either act will doubtless feel the same way. ~ Mark Deming