This stuff is so light and fresh and airy, it has no right being so accessible in the wintertime. I’ve been grooving (that’s the word, in the Young Rascals sense) to Eytan & The Embassy’s album The Perfect Break-Up non-stop for a couple of days now. It’s got that classic Raspberries or late-ELO feel, where songs are translated in a perfect pop lingo using phrases and notes coined by masters such as The Beatles (heavy on the Lennon), The Turtles (for the harmonies), Northwestern R&B/garage bands, Bolan & Bowie, and many unsung one-hit-wonders of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Musically, this is comforting and familiar, yet fresh. Lyrically, it’s human and honest and confessional, yet fresh. The fact that bandleader Eytan Oren appears shockingly young, and that these ambassadors of London, Detroit, Memphis and L.A. sounds base their embassy in Brooklyn, gives the whole project an otherworldly, out-of-time feel. Yet here they are, in the here and now, giving contemporary teens a forebear of what kept their poor punk-starved parents going in the late-middle 20th century. “The Good Life” features guest bleatings and bashings by Locksley, one of my all-time fave pop/punk/British invasion blenders. I’m a power-pop purist; this is a hard artform for the post-modern set to crack. Locksley’s done it, and so now has Eytan & The Embassy.
Things get even brighter with the brand new Eytan & The Embassy single, released Tuesday on iTunes. “Everything Changes” doesn’t exactly change everything—it’s the same heady brew of power-pop, white soul, Motown horns and ‘70s AM radio rock—but this time the studio production seems to keep up with all the melodic voices in Eytan’s head. It overwhelms with confidence and energy. It’s also a song of optimism and self-awareness, which is nice to hear during these cold-season just-broke-all-my-New-Year’s-resolutions doldrums.
Eytan & The Embassy play tomorrow, Thursday Feb. 2, at the Outer Space in Hamden. As impressed as I am by the extravagant pop production, I imagine this would be a special band to see live. Eytan takes pride in his soulful voice, and I expect one of the balladdy tunes such as “Juliet,” where he croons “Come on, I am on your side,” could be intoxicating in a small club as a surefire rave-up like “Queen Bee.”
Eytan & The Embassy play Feb. 2 at the Outer Space in Hamden—a single release party of sorts—with Super Bad, Matt Maynes of Johnny Mainstream and Patrick McHenry.