Veteran producer-musician Bleu has a new record set for release. Tapping into the power pop mainline, the cuts that comprise Sargeant Pepper Grinder, the Los Angeles-based artist’s seventh album, are bold in conception and bright in execution. It’s radio-ready pop-rock with infusions of glam and flashes of tuneful psychedelia. It’s out on August 20 through Miracle Records with the vinyl mastered by Licorice Pizza Records.
Sargeant Pepper Grinder is coming out at the right time, as it is very much a volume-up, windows-down, acceleration-to-the-floor kind of record. As the tracks pile up, the scale broadens considerably, but the shebang starts in a mode closer to singer-songwriter pop with a baroque psych tinge.
That’s the title track, which will get a reprise in the record’s tail end, but next is the catchy stomping rocker “Start a Band,” loaded with guitar zest and anthemic dynamic shifts wild enough to turn even the most finicky power pop fan’s frown upside down. Next is “This Song Won’t Sell,” which swings from calm and contemplative to pummeling and explosive in a manner that’s maximal but engagingly non-trite.
“Where the Colors Bleed,” which features guest vocals by Los Angeles musician Carly Paige, finds Bleu hanging in the same neighborhood that housed Jeff Lynne in the second half of the 1970s. “Scooch” is just as catchy but considerably more glammed-out, with adrenaline-gush momentum, a ripping guitar solo, and a rave-up ending plus high vocal notes galore.
Kicking off with pizzicato strings, “Shiny Dimes” hits a solid mid-tempo and then tricks it out with a chorus of increased sweep, a scaled-back acoustic strum spot, and, in its waning moments, kid vocals, credited to (assumedly) Bleu’s son, William McAuley IV. “The Last Scene of the Magic Dead” gives a foundation of downtrodden ’70s pop (think Rundgren) an injection of pure bombast. Loud and soaring, it’s still an infectious proposition.
The keyboard-driven “Deathbed” is Sargeant Pepper Grinder’s grandest singer-songwriterly statement. It never hits a rocking plateau, but Bleu can’t resist getting loud in a few spots. For “In the Red,” he welcomes vocalist Kelly Jones for a jaunty number with a smidge of ’80s atmosphere. It would make a fine single.
“I’m Not Dead” is also relatively relaxed but does ramp it up for the finale. That reprise swoops in to complete a record that’s arena-sized but with some edge and smart, likable songs. Sargeant Pepper Grinder is a record made by a fan of pop in its numerous rocking forms. Bleu’s latest is too crisply current to be assessed as an homage while still indebted to the past. It is tailor-made for repeat spins.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
