The Lovetones' third album is less explicit in its '60s and '70s reference points than its predecessor,
Meditations. At times it sounds like a rather average singer/songwriter album dusted with late-'60s/early-'70s quirks in the production and the arrangements, particularly with Mellotron sounds, mildly distorted vocals and instruments, and organs that seem as if they might have been airlifted in from a different era. While it doesn't give pleasure to point this out, the best moments are those that are most reminiscent of past work by the greats. That's particularly the case when songwriter
Matt Tow reaches for the kind of expansive grandeur projected by
David Bowie in the early '70s, when
Bowie seemed at his most sincere -- a similarity that's never greater than in "Ordinary Lives," one of the record's highlights. If you always lamented that the ever-changing
Bowie abandoned that phase of his development fairly quickly, some of these songs are the kind of thing that can give you a quick fix of more of the same, though
Tow isn't as far-reaching (or pretentious) in his scope. If you also lament the lost art of writing decent melodic mid-tempo songs that use keyboards as well as guitars, it's recommended as well, sometimes specifically recalling
John Lennon's knack for doing such material in the '70s.