Planet Pearl

Beginning in 2018 with their debut album, Canned Music, Pearl & the Oysters have had a run of bright and sunny records that have existed gleefully in the middle of a Venn diagram where indie pop, hip-hop, jazz, funk, soft rock, and easy listening converge. Throw in some pop from around the world -- France and Brazil -- then top it off with a joyfully off-kilter lyrical stance and a knack for melodies sweet enough to charm the socks off even the grumpiest of curmudgeons, and theres no denying that the duo have got something really special going. So special, in fact, that they decided to make no structural changes whatsoever on their fourth album, 2024s Planet Pearl. All the elements their fans have come to love are firmly in place, from the wide-eyed vocals of Juliette Davis and the warm-as-a-summer-breeze electric pianos to the bubbling bass lines and whimsical synths that flit around the edges of the arrangements. The record holds no real surprises, but it does wrap the listener up in a big, warm, familiar hug, and in times that can be confusing at best, thats not a bad thing. The songs tell a loose story of an interstellar space traveler who ends up stuck on Earth, and some of the tracks do capture a bit of the melancholy that would be part and parcel of such an experience. The solo and sweet ballad "Together, Alone" and the bossa nova-adjacent "Halfway Where?" definitely have a muted, almost blue feeling that permeates even as the music twists and twirls colorfully. Elsewhere, the band dial the mood down even further as they indulge in a little bit of cocktail jazz on "I Fell into a Piano," conjure up a lovely Carpenters-in-space moment with "A Planet Upside Down," and for a change of pace, get happily bouncy on "Cruise Control." They also do that nifty trick of dressing up some less-than-happy lyrics in brightly grinning pop clothes on "Big Time," where the unlucky traveler sounds fed up with being lost in L.A. And just to prove they didnt sell all their guitars, they drop in some fuzzy crunch on the power pop-meets-Disney track "4D." It all adds up to an experience thats very Pearl & the Oysters, and thats not bad at all. In fact, its pretty great. Their formula shows no signs of strain, and the little alterations here and there keep things sounding crisp and fresh. One would be hard-pressed to find any other group doing exactly what they are doing on Planet Pearl, and in an age of carbon-copy, algorithm-chasing artists and bands, thats something that deserves all the flowers. ~ Tim Sendra