4 out of 5

Label: In Music We Trust

Produced by: Jeff Saltzman, Joanna Bolme (engineered by)

When you’re poking around the history of Heatmiser – the band No. 2er Neil Gust was in with Elliott Smith before they both went their separate ways – there seems to be a lot ‘Gust was great, but Smith was greater’ type comments. And, yes, Elliot was gone too soon… but have you heard What Does Good Luck Bring? Have you heard Gust’s several contributions to the list of greatest pop rock songs of all time?

Yeah, that’s right: you can sift through your pop rolodex and toss a bevy of other examples at me, and I’m sure many of them classify, but I also don’t see how a song like Traveling doesn’t immediately sear a permanent path in your earholes; this is a song that always gets me moving. As does A Little Confusion; As does For the Last Time… as does most of this album.

No. 2 combines the Beatles-y sing song you can hear in Smith’s music (and certainly in later Heatmister) with Gust’s penchant for hooks. No. 2 started out carrying over some punky edge from previous ventures, but this second album softened that up, going full bore indie rock and creating a nigh-perfect head-bobbing pop disc. Neil’s snarky and smart relationship and working man observations sync well with the approach, keeping the mood and vibes relatable, but not without some weight.

That said, some of the attempts to expand the group’s boogie into something even broader – like late album power pop jam Good Intentions – can feel derivative, avoiding the guitar riffage which otherwise immediately catches your ear, and the aforementioned relatability can be a weakness when the tracks are more stripped down, as on 8:45 AM. Not that No.2 should just focus on the one thing they do really well – writing hooks – but, like, those hooks are so damn good…

Even given the album’s exceptions, I still rate this as an all-time disc, the kind of release you can always put in and just start tapping your toe to, fresh since its release in the early 00s and just as much fun now.