*** 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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