Antiques

Pilot Radio's Antiques is a slick and straightforward sophomore effort, solidly in line with the mainstream sounds of Matchbox Twenty or Train. Vocalist Ricky Young has the sort of flat yet still emotive voice that's well suited for music like this -- his listless phrasing lends some potentially problematic lyrics ("There's something wrong with the radio/Because all I hear are sad songs," from the moody "All Along") the proper amount of weight, so that much of Antiques approaches the atmospheric self-involvement mulled over so much by Counting Crows' Adam Duritz. This is Generation X music, saved from the middle of the road by wry, resigned wit and a collective failure to make relationships last longer than two weeks. A cool calliope effect shimmers along in "World Without You" before a filtered circus organ completes its dreamy, lonely guy landscape; meanwhile, the spiteful-to-sad "Good Thing You're Young" has its urgency enlivened by piano and fiddle, and opener "Obvious Things" washes the back-and-forth of a couple's argument in layers of guitar (is the "Come strong" lyric a Jim Rome reference?). Pilot Radio might have spread some of the grit in standout "Sunshine" around -- Antiques has a tendency to be too slick at times. But overall it's a strong album, and one that should give impressionable twentysomethings more tuneful fodder for fretting over failed love affairs. ~ Johnny Loftus