21st May 2009:
THE irony of rock music supergroups is they are rarely, well, super. So newly minted four-piece pop-rock band Tinted Windows had the odds stacked against it from the start.
But the assemblage of musicians is so bizarre that it may just work. There's Taylor Hanson of Hanson, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne.
The band, which made its live debut in March at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, found an audience willing to give this surprising combination a chance.
The music proved almost a composite of Cheap Trick and Fountains of Wayne - minus the irony - with a bit of Weezer thrown in.
Tinted Windows' easily consumed brand of power-pop glides by on their enjoyable, if a little earnest, debut album.
Swirling single Kind of Girl is a highlight; We Got Something, amps up the power chords and Back with You sounds a like a rocked-up version of Savage Garden.
In other words, it's a lark. 3/5
May 21st 2009
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