On the first half of The Late Engagement, the Washington D.C.-area's
Poole fails to improve on their mostly sparkling 1995 debut,
Alaska Days. They've added a fifth member, and the resulting third guitar thickens the spry sound, makes it harder to pick out the fresh riffing underneath the now louder, rawer power pop, and makes
Harry Evans' pleasant singing much harder to hear. Also, the production is cleaner but not warmer, making the early songs settle into an underground pop rut: not wild enough to be garage rock, not pretty enough for mood pop, and not spectral enough to be (fast) dream pop. However,
Poole mitigates their worst tunes with a good attitude and a stack of humble harmonies. And beginning midway through the LP, these students of melody, who were sharp enough to cover XTC's "Earn Enough for Us" on their last B-side, finally win over the recalcitrant with a batch of tunes as tasty as just-baked cookies, and some deft moves. These moves are hinted at earlier in the LP on the sleighbell-laden "ba-ba-ba" Beach Boys tribute (a real page out of the XTC book). "La Chanson de la Voiture du Pompier," the nicely plucked title track lullaby, and the acoustic silent "Junior" loll nicely, sandwiching two early Velvet Crush-like, post-Big Star smack-pop gems, the sharp single "Sparkler" and "Modern Way." This engagement might be late indeed, but it's worth the delay.