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The Portland Phoenix
March 22 - 29, 2001

[Music Reviews]

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*** The Rosenbergs

MISSION: YOU

(Discipline Global Mobile)

The dish on this Long Island foursome is that they turned down an offer from Farmclub.com that would have entailed a Web and TV broadcast of the band, after which they would have been locked into a six-album deal, whether they liked it or not. That was probably a smart move because the Rosenbergs’ brand of sugary goodness is apt to taste better if it’s not being rammed down people’s throats. Mission: You is the work of a band committed to safekeeping the kind of power pop that brings on all kinds of good feelings — homework, taxes, and girlfriend problems all dissipate under the spell of the disc’s sing-along melodies. The sweet-and-sour jazz chords and sand-in-the-mouth vocal harmonies in “Secret” say it all. “Fast Asleep” and “After All” are record-collector pop — nothing special, perhaps, but Posies fans will get a kick out of the harmonies, and Cars fans can feel nostalgia over those classic “Just What I Needed” keyboards. And the disc’s final track, “Overboard,” is a seven-minute walk on the clouds sustained by strummy tenderness and violin-like slide guitars that ease right in to Mazzy Star atmospheres.

— Lorne Behrman


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