On their second album, Nashville indie trio
Apollo Up! refuses to stick to one specific musical style. "Cut Up," for example, unexpectedly delves into the kind of
A Certain Ratio style early-'80s Brit funk recently rediscovered by a generation of
Franz Ferdinand followers, complete with spiky trumpet interjections. Further along, on "Even if You Don't Die" and "Custom Critical," lead singer
Jay Leo Phillips trots out a startlingly accurate impersonation of the young
Elvis Costello set to
Ted Leo-style blends of punk and old-school R&B. Later still, "Tennessee for Victory" is a bracing two-minute pop-punk blast with a fists-in-the-air chorus. The connecting thread of all of this is the bristling energy captured by producer
Jeremy Ferguson, whose early work with the vaguely similar
Be Your Own Pet carries a similar frisson. It's extremely easy to pick out the influences on
Chariots of Fire -- way too easy, in fact -- but there's a spark of creativity to this young band that suggests that their future albums may integrate these influences into something more unique.