The Winnerys' first widely distributed album is spirited, competent power pop, though hardly as epochal as its influences. It's thick with guitar-dominated songs with vocal harmonies, perhaps with a greater Merseybeat influence than most such bands bear. The songs, most likely to the surprise of no one, are mostly about feeling good and being in love, with a hearty optimism charging even the songs about heartache and longing. They like to go into the upper vocal register, but they're not
Paul McCartneys or even
Allan Clarkes (of
the Hollies) in that regard, sometimes showing some strain at the top of the arc, though not ear-gratingly so. Some lyrics reflecting a modern attitude do slip in that likely would have not found a place on pre-1970s recordings, like the note that "I was so f*cking busy" in "The Guy With Two Houses," and the intro couplet "I'm writing this song for the girl that I love, she owes me my records, I owe her my soul" in "Even More Than Myself." As on a lot of power pop records, while superficially
Beatlesque music may be at the center, there are passing references to different sounds --
the Who,
the Byrds,
the Hollies,
Badfinger, even a bit of early-'70s
Rolling Stones in "The Guy With Two Houses." And "Little Dark Cloud" has a bit of a
Kinks-like ironic, wary bounce, standing out as one of the more memorable tracks by virtue of its difference among more amiable surroundings.