For many singer-songwriters, it’s the happy songs that are the hardest to write.
The kind of artist who seeks to convey his or her own struggles is driven to do so by the kind of inner turmoil that necessitates melancholy, the kind that thrives on minor chords and emotional bridges.
The Cherry Flavored Elevator is not comprised of this kind of artist.
Deep introspection and emotional travesty do not have a home on the CFE’s debut studio recording; but who needs that stuff anyway?
In a musical world dominated by emo-centric pop tunes and lost love balladry, the sheer fun of The Cherry Flavored Elevator is enough to make any jaded listener get up and dance.
The CFE lives up to its name.
The songs as sweet as grenadine, a feeling derived from singer Dan Miraldi’s ‚Äò09 endlessly lovestruck lyrics and guitarist Jay Nemeyer’s fuzzed-out amps.
Miraldi’s nasal, wavering tenor, somewhere between the Black Crows’ Chris Robinson and Cold War Kids’ Nathan Willett is the garnish on the group’s almost sickeningly sweet cocktail.
The bass, especially when picked in the album’s third track, provides solid garage punk fills circa Green Day’s Mike Dirnt around ’94, and the drums, which alternate between choppy, Travis- Barker style snare work and a more steady, roots-rock vibe √† la Bright Eyes, help set different shades of a good mood.
Though Miraldi’s brightness grooves throughout the entire album, the best tracks are the ones in which the band’s sugar-sweet vibe is a little subtler.
The best track, “More Than Yesterday,” lends itself to a much more stripped-down country vibe, as opposed to the pop punk of the album’s first three songs.
Twinges of slide guitar and a natural acoustic feel find a balance with the catchy amorous lyrics that sound more genuine on this laid- back but up-tempo tune.
“Build Your Own Girlfriend,” a seemingly lovesick take on “Weird Science” is hilarious, and hearing Miraldi snarl like David Johansen in the song’s opening is a fresh change. The blues-laden chords of “My Dear Sophia,” which seem to have found their way straight out of “Honky Tonk Woman,” are also a highlight.
Though “My Dear Sophia” is a blast, it also contains a few of the album’s most lyrically weak moments.
Lines like “I took his gold and I took his car/and then we drove it very far” show Miraldi struggling, and while genre-bending moments define the album’s best songs, they also reveal its worst.
The faux-philosophical and forced political ramblings of “Protest Song” are trite, unnecessary and juvenile, and the acoustic, “Troubles Fade Away” would have been better left unadorned by synth-strings and unnecessary sentiment.
The moments that shine are the ones that shy away from the pop-punk genre, but stay in familiar territory.
By injecting a little country flavor, CFE takes on a new and much more original quality.
The album as a whole is hooky, fun, and a blast to listen to, but the Cherry in Cherry Flavored Elevator tastes best with the attitude of a Roy Rogers instead of the sweetness of a Shirley Temple.