Pete and the gang Supergroup? Well, prettydamngoodgroup, anyway BY SAM PFEIFLE

If nothing else, the Pete Kilpatrick Supergroup could once at least lay claim to being the tallest band in Portland. Sure, Eldemur Krimm’s Fred Dodge might be the tallest individual, but the Supergroup, when Kilpatrick was surrounded by guitarist Jesse Remignanti, bassist Hutch Heelan, and drummer Ethan Wright, looked like they might be the USM basketball team, missing a point guard. I felt like Gulliver hanging out with the Brobdignagians when they came up to accept their award for Best New Act at the 2003 Best Music Poll Awards.

But, "I never realized how hard it was to keep a band together," Kilpatrick tells me, sitting on the couch in my office. Remignanti bailed out, and on came Jim Hamalainen, who’s now been replaced by Calvin Goodale (stolen from friends Vague Valentine, no relation to Jeremiah Freed’s Nick). Heelan’s gone, too, and the Supergroup was sort of bassless for a while until they found Bernie Nye, a music major at USM (and who himself has been stolen by Vague Valentine to play some shows). All of the above play on Pete Kilpatrick’s sophomore album, Yesterday Love, out this week.

Wright’s still around, too, and if you take a look at the liner notes you’ll find a passel of other guest musicians and friends. Adam Flaherty and former Even All Out frontman Billy Libby lend vocals. Co-producers Jon Wyman and Spencer Albee provide guitars and keys, guitars and vocals, respectively. Singer/songwriter Graham Isaacson co-writes a song and helps sing it.

For the album, anyway, the Supergroup is aptly named. It looks like the lineup of Goodale, Wright, and Nye will stick around for a bit, too. But, "the CD’s just Pete Kilpatrick," says Kilpatrick. "It’s a marketing type of thing." That whole Supergroup stuff leads to too many silly questions when they’re out on the road and booking shows. Might as well keep things simple. Like John Mayer, or Howie Day, who don’t exactly play that many solo gigs either.

Kilpatrick shares some other qualities with those two. He’s a bit of heart-throb, one gets the idea, and he’s currently mining that abundant college-show territory for gigs and fanbase, and he keeps his acoustic guitar close by. Plus, he’s fond of heart-felt love songs and a good falsetto now and again, but isn’t so singer/songwritery that he doesn’t get good and worked up with a rock song from time to time.

If you’ve heard Kilpatrick’s 2003 debut record, Half-Way Home, this isn’t new, but disc number two is significantly better. "We’ve just all grown up," Kilpatrick thinks. "The songwriting is a lot more mature. This is kind of the point I was hoping that we would get to the last time around. There’s more room on the album for people to breathe; it’s not me singing all the time, every single moment."

He credits Albee, especially, for helping them get where they wanted to go. Running low on funds after recording three tracks with Wyman, Kilpatrick turned to Albee and his infamous kitchen, where As Fast As recorded much of their last album. "We spent the whole month of December in that kitchen," Kilpatrick says.

Also, where the first album, as you might expect, drew on songs that Kilpatrick had been kicking around since he was in high school, "Most of the songs [on the new album] we wrote in the last six months. So it’s not like there’s songs we’ve been sitting on for five years. It’s fresh and you can tell when you listen to it."

Whether it’s the songwriting or the production, there’s no doubt the songs here shimmer and pop. Kilpatrick’s acoustic rings out where it should and drops to the background when it’s unnecessary. Keyboards come to life for bridges and choruses. The electric guitars change tone and character with both the player and the material. When you notice the drums, it’s because they’ve caught your attention, not because they’ve demanded it.

Are there some vocal idiosyncrasies? Yes, Kilpatrick sometimes overreaches. Is the last song, "Out at Sea," a bit of a singer/songwritery clunker? Sure, but hardcore gal fans will swoon. Do the love songs sometimes travel in cliché? Of course. They’re love songs.

What’s most important is that the songwriting is consistently interesting, and they’re not afraid to take chances.

The title track, track three, the money track mind you, opens with a pretty standard acoustic strum, sure, but then comes this techno drum beat, heavy and dominating, making the eventual vocals, distorted and low in the mix, seem to run for cover. When the chorus comes in, it’s all industrial-sounding and the vocals are only in the left channel — a little bit Seven and the Ragged Tiger, actually — before it properly, finally, launches in crystal clear and shimmering: "When you say love, how could I forget?/ Yesterday love, it’s like we never met."

That chorus and a cool down-tuned guitar hook is just about all you’ll take away from the song, everything else so wrapped up in itself and emotion.

For "Cloud," they evince a Paul Simon Graceland opening, especially from the rhythm section, and this time Pete’s voice for the verse is completely forward in the mix, and just about naked, no doubling or effects, a protection most singers wrap around themselves nowadays.

When the chorus hits, he melts into the background, feathered and layered: "One more chance is all that I need/ One last try/ So please save me." (Chances, appropriately, are a lyrical theme on the album, too. From "Vision is Hazy": "One last try, a second chance for me/ I broke out of that word called sympathy and I’m all right.")

The organ supports an electric break through the bridge before the song circles around to the finish with a couple refrains of the chorus. They could easily finish the song here, and probably would have on Half-Way Home, but they instead let it do some of that breathing Kilpatrick was talking about, finishing out with just that Graceland percussion, fading out for a good 20 seconds.

Also unexpected is "Favorite Street," a two-minute piece of candy where all the vocals are done with a cylons-like computer voice. Big heavy synth chords help Kilpatrick tell us that "I’m gonna write the perfect song . . . about a girl that never lived."

Perhaps the biggest chance here is that a song Pete didn’t write, "Working on Your Heart," will be remembered as the best of the lot. It blew me away on first listen, Isaacson and Kilpatrick working together like a 1979 duet between Peter Gabriel and Sting.

Kilpatrick opens the song, like everything’s normal, before Isaacson’s warm baritone enters: "Strands fall to the ground/ Now she’s nothing but a lonely sound/ Come winter, he’s growing tall." But it’s just a simple back and forth without the pure-pop, ice-pick-in-the-head chorus of Kilpatrick singing, "All I can say, it’s better this way/ When your love’s pouring down, it tears me apart/ It’s never enough to make me drown/ Filling up your heart till it explodes."

Later they combine on the chorus, unfortunately eschewing what would have been a great opportunity for one of them to sing the harmony part, but still nicely pairing their voices. Kilpatrick’s tenor with Isaacson’s growl just has to be heard.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter who wrote what. Even the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith have lately taken on songwriting partners. What’s important is that Kilpatrick, despite singing of Yesterday Love, is always thinking about what sounds good now. "Cause the day after tomorrow, I don’t know where I’ll be/ So let’s enjoy the time we have," he sings on "Day After Tomorrow."

There’s plenty to enjoy here.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com

Pete Kilpatrick play CD-release shows, with Averi and Sudden Ease on March 25, and with to-be-determined acts on March 26, at the Big Easy, in Portland. Call (207) 871-8817.