3 out of 5

Label: 5 Foot 2 Records

Producer: Greg Wells

I dunno how I got in to that dog.  I would say it was the Brad Wood production credit, and that might be it… but I feel like that was just a happy coincidence.  I rather think it was just a benefit of my old school style of record shopping, where I’d scour the “thank you” section of the albums I owned for the bands they name, then, when dragging some unlucky lady to one of the few used record shops in St. Louis (GAWD sentimental r.i.p. for those memories), I’d squeal with “I’m so underground” joy when I’d find the random name-check in the bins, and spend my paltry mall-record-store earnings on whatever it was.

Not that that dog. was really too underground, right?  I mean, they had some minor-big hits, they had some MTV play, they had Beck connections.  Regardless of the origin story, ‘Retreat From the Sun’ is still such a gem of pop-rock in my collection, blending some gorgeous harmonies with just the right amount of blasting rock n’ roll and California punky beats and heck, some strings.  Lead singer Anna Waronker’s lyrics leaned toward girly stuff, but she delivered it with the slight mannish inflection to her vocals that I seem to prefer (sorry?), and with a smirk that hit just the right balance of awareness and honesty to not make it annoying or embarrassing.  She also, admittedly, fulfilled some needed girl-music crush I’d never really had before.

Not just for me, I’m sure, since she appears nude on the cover of her first solo album.  I bring up all the dog nonsense up there because I can’t say for sure if ‘Anna’ would’ve caught my ear without the history.  The hooks are still there, and you can absolutely identify that this springs from the same mind – the lyrics have that same balance of sexuality and seriousness, the song structures are mostly rock and punk stabs slapped onto a poppy drum beat, and of course, it’s Anna’s voice.  But it’s also for sure a solo album, with the indulgences that implies – a layer of sneer seems removed from the album, making it a bit more honest, and there are more introspective moments that, alas, sound more like typical radio chick rock stuff.  And it’s not a band.  Professionalism is all over this, but it doesn’t rock like a band – it rocks like session players (though it’s friends and relations, like Joey Waronker) playing tracks that someone else wrote, which is to say that it rocks because it’s written that way and not because the band comes around to the song due to their travels as a group.  This equally feeds into the production, which plays it safe and rounds off all the edges, perhaps to buffer the lack of harmonizing now that we’re down to our one main vocalist – although I do suggest this for headphones, as there are some nice subtleties done with reverb and such that get lost when playing it over speakers.

It’s still a fun pop-rock album, with bursts of originality and ‘that dog.’ style fun n’ sun, but whether this would grab a random listener’s ear or just blend into the waves of chick rock is questionable.