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It's not often that an album grows on me. Usually I am taken with recording (or not) from the first time I hear it. Perhaps I found the album title ("Songs for the Strong") clumsy, perhaps I wasn't in the mood for the albums pleasant upbeat feel but I wasn't struck by this recording the first few times I listened to it.
But it did grow on me. There's was a cloak of polite familiarity here I couldn't escape. I thought they were reminding me of a specific band that I couldn't put my finger on. I was wrong, they reminded me of a whole history of artists.
There are elements of these songs that could have gotten Holiday and the Adventure Pop Collective compared to the Eagles or James Taylor by Rolling Stone in the 70's. There are other bits that sound like the band belongs sandwiched between R.E.M. and Love Tractor on 80's college radio. Listen to "Songs for the Strong" and you can image these guys opening for The Jayhawks or Blues Traveller in the 90's... you can even hear a touch of John Popper in the vocals.
These three guys (Derric Oliver, Louis Caverly, Michael Taylor Hahn) may be non-traditional in their instrumentation (they've ditched the bass and feature violin with the guitar and drums). But the end result is little "r" rock. It's a nice combination of rock/pop elements with country touches. It's never quite country rock, it's somewhere between twang and jangle pop... twangle pop?
The vocals are well done and there's no doubt that these are skilled musicians. There's a good range of mood so they avoid the trap of having every song sound the same. And two of these songs are utterly solid. You could easily hear "Airport Song" getting radio airplay and "Athena and the Dogs" is wonderfully fun with the best violin work on the album.
"Songs for the Strong" isn't going to knock you over like a sledge hammer but it may politely walk up to you and ask if you'd like to have a couple of beers with the band.
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Holiday and the Adventure Pop Collective:
http://www.hatapco.com/
http://www.myspace.com/hatapco
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