The second Gearhead full-length from California's
Red Planet finds the boys adorning the cover in coordinated black and red outfits that immediately conjure up preconceptions that the music inside will sound like those other fashion plates
the Hives and
the White Stripes (which wouldn't seem like too much of a stretch, since Gearhead also served as home to
the Hives). Thankfully, looks can be deceiving.
Red Planet's crunchy guitar attack and big choruses owe far more to power pop than garage rock, and, odds are, the band's members own more
Cheap Trick live albums than
Velvet Underground bootlegs. The vocals show traces of the playful snottiness of Robin Zander, but this record has the fingerprints of outfits like the Knack, the Nerves,
the Flamin' Groovies,
the Raspberries, and
the Cars all over it. Although the album hardly changes the group's formula, it's a suitable follow-up to 2000s
Revolution 33 and is sure to go over well with fans and select newcomers. This is a fun slab of straight-up, guitar-driven power pop with big vocals for those who find
the Loch Ness Mouse too syrupy,
Supergrass too British, and
Superdrag too indie. It's also a surprising foray into power pop for Gearhead, a label normally associated with punks and garage throwbacks. ~ Karen E. Graves