Auto Interiors: Lets Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends

Auto Interiors
Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends
Rykodisk
2007-03-13

It wouldn’t do justice to call Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends simply a power pop album. In some ways it’s the power-pop album, that holy grail of saccharine rock that many in the music business strive for. In other ways, it’s pure pop, the kind of bubblegum music that a host of early ’90s alternarock bands pumped out in casks. Though Auto Interiors like to claim the Kinks and the Who as their main influences — they call their brand of music “record collector rock” — the band sounds more indebted to Elvis Costello, the Rembrandts, and Spacehog.

Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends is a good, catchy album, if not basically homogenous: At times, it’s sometimes difficult to tell where one song ends and another begins. A few tunes stand out, such as the superb “True Life in Cinema”, and late favorite “Small Death.” The latter struts around with an enviable cabaret flair. “Green Arrow” is also a surprise, injecting intricate, driving rock into an otherwise squeaky clean release.

RATING 6 / 10