Andy Ross will probably forever be known in pop culture circles as one of the guys dancing on treadmills as part of
OK Go, but his solo work as
Secret Dakota Ring -- he writes pretty much everything, but producer/drummer Travis Harrison is a near-regular constant as well, among other guest musicians -- shows that he has interests beyond peppy power pop -- namely, peppy and winsome psych-in-a-sweetly-mushy way pop. (Though to be fair
Cantarell's "Sell Us a Spaceship" cranks up a feedback-off-to-the-stars feeling that
Billy Corgan once made his own.) Ross's second album under that name is the kind of intentionally fragile thing that isn't trying to be anything else -- it's a vision of rock & roll that begins with the
Left Banke and the late
Zombies, with a heavy dollop of
Sean O'Hagan's string arrangements for the
High Llamas and elsewhere. The resultant mix, like that of so many similar projects worldwide, is simply too in hock to its multiple forebears to be anything more than a gentle diversion -- Ross's calm but engaged voice and his ear for a gentle romp in the arrangements, as with "The Fade to Black," are his best gifts more than a striking way around songwriting and lyrics. Strings coast along, horns add further exultance (the conclusion to "Losing Eyeballs" is a highlight there), and the whole is so pleasant it almost feels churlish to say that it's mostly an understandable indulgence more than anything else. Still, there it is -- and credit to a good song title in "I Blew Myself Up Over You." ~ Ned Raggett