Fans of the
the Eels,
Beck, and
Apples in Stereo should fall head over heels for
Jack Drag's
The Sun Inside. From the song titles to the lo-fi psychedelic pop feel, John Dragonetti pushes all the right buttons in creating tiny symphonies of harmonic delight. If there are any problems with the album, they are that the beat never really alters across the album's running time and that Dragonetti isn't the strongest of lyricists. But true fans of fuzzy twee pop with electronic beats probably won't complain. Goofy samples, hazy keyboards, wacky breaks, a dose of shoegazer sheen,
Beach Boys-style harmonies, and plenty of cuddly tom trickery keep things light and airy.
The Sun Inside is at its best when Dragonetti really gets going on the mixer and layers scads and scads of sounds over one another. "Sun Inside"'s epic wall-of-sound shimmer mingles nicely with looping electronic beats, making for a sweetly sad listen. "I Could Never Let You Go" is impossibly bubbly, especially the endless extended bouts of Dragonetti's "bop, bop, bop" chanting. When
Dan "the Automator" Nakamura lends a helpful hand on "FM Royalty," one gets the sense that the two songwriters together might nearly be a watch for
Meat Beat Manifesto. All in all,
Jack Drag might be trudging a bit too close to sounds that
Beck and E have nearly trademarked, but fans of this sprightly genre won't care at the end of the day. They'll just hum along and smile. ~ Tim DiGravina