Record review: Julie Ocean, "Long Gone and Nearly There"

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By NICK CRISTIANO / Philadelphia Inquirer

4 stars

Jim Spellman likes his allusions: his former band, the charming Velocity Girl, took its name from an early Primal Scream song. “Julie Ocean” was a great new-wave pop single from Ireland’s Undertones, which tips to one of the musical roots of this DC band.

Released on local label Transit of Venus, “Long Gone and Nearly There” is a terse (10 songs in 25 minutes) blast of nostalgia for the jangly, melodic guitar pop of the Eighties, from early decade new wave to mid-decade Brit Pop to later lo-fi underground America, from those Undertones to the Wedding Present to Guided by Voices.

Although it might help, one doesn’t have to be history-minded to love the ecstatic harmonies of “1 Song,” the power-pop hooks of “Here Comes Danny,” and the zippy guitar riffs of “At the Appointed Hour.”

— Steve Klinge

Philadelphia Inquirer

Country

James McMurtry

“Just Us Kids”

HHHH

The son of Texas novelist Larry McMurtry, James McMurtry has long proven himself to be a keen-eyed heartland bard whose songs never offer up any easy romanticism. And the same goes for his delivery.

“Just Us Kids” presents more of McMurtry’s sharply sculpted tales of alienation and regret, restlessness and resignation, occasionally spiced with sardonic wit and framed with lean, muscular roots-rock (Ian McLagan, Jon Dee Graham, and C.C. Adcock are among the accompanists). As he has in the last few years, McMurtry also continues to broaden from the personal into the political, with the scathingly ironic “God Bless America” and an unsparing portrait of the soldier as pawn, “Cheney’s Toy.”