For the past three decades, Minnesota music has been a love affair with pop. A simple formula: Pop + Twang = Jayhawks; Pop + Punk = Husker Du; Pop + Booze = The Replacements. Following in that vein, Pop + Maturity = Kangaroo.
Maturity may not be the adjective most musicians are looking for, but this band of husbands, fathers, and middle-school music teachers wears it quite well. The quintet — centered around the songwriting team of Peter Lawton and Craig Wright (a.k.a. The Tropicals) — has clearly heard a fair share of Beatles, Beach Boys, and Big Star.
Phantom offers up a wealth of sweet harmonies and infectious hooks. The opener, “Mystery To Me”, sets the tone, with killer guitar riffs, vintage MiniMoog-like synths, and perfectly placed drum fills.
Lyrically the album doesn’t venture far beyond love songs, but if grown men singing about “young girls” and “race cars” sounds like a play on pop tradition, the sentiments become quite different when the love songs are for their children. “Lucy”, written for Lawton’s daughter, vividly captures magic and amazement of life as only a new parent could see it.
From start to finish, Phantom does what pop does best: It lifts your spirits. It seems to aspire to little more, until the closing title track, a somber wash of organ and multi-tracked vocals that recalls Brian Wilson’s “Until I Die”. It’s poetic, elegiac, and outright beautiful — and perhaps a hint that something far more significant is yet to come from this band.