Tinted Windows – Tinted Windows
(2009, S-Curve Records)

One of the challenges with evaluating any power pop album is not letting the review turn into a game of spot-the-influence. The genre as a whole draws — shamelessly! — from its predecessors, to widely varying effect; but simply tossing a power pop record aside with a verdict of “it sounds like so-and-so” is a disservice, to both bands.

Power pop has always been saccharine and pathos distilled into three-minute bubble gum blasts, but that doesn’t make it inferior. And the same goes for the self-titled debut from Tinted Windows, a seemingly unlikely multi-generational match-up of guitarist James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins), bassist Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), drummer Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick) and vocalist Taylor Hanson (last seen in the ’90s teen sensation Hanson). Tinted Windows is stitched together with the thread of the past 40 years of power pop, but that really isn’t a bad thing in capable hands.

The band members all have fuzzy pop rock cred, even if you have to search a bit for it. Carlos is a given, and Schlesinger’s bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy have been mining this territory for a while (he also wrote the lion’s share of songs for the film That Thing You Do!, if you didn’t know). Iha’s resume is a little more diverse, but the guy has always been heavily influenced by the ’70s guitar pop (chiefly, you guessed it, Cheap Trick). And Hanson, if you haven’t tuned in since their cotton candy days, have matured into something closer to the Raspberries than Jonas Bros.

Hanson is a capable frontman, his voice energetic and raspy in the right proportions. The band clicks too, and brings their own nuances to the mix. Carlos absolutely kills his drum kit in even the softer songs, and a few of Iha’s guitar parts stretch beyond Power Pop 101 to something ghostly and ethereal. And some of the choruses have an overdubbed slab of guitar crunch that sounds just like what Schlesinger was doing on the first Fountains of Wayne album — that’s a good thing.

The first single “Kind of a Girl” is catchy enough, complete with “whoa-oh-oh” backing vocals, but the real standouts are “Messing With My Head” (sporting a ridiculously catchy chorus, almost like a mutant fusion between Rick Springfield, the Cars and the Posies) and “Doncha Wanna,” which easily shifts from brooding to subversively catchy in a heartbeat. There are also a handful of solid guitar hook workouts like “Can’t Get a Read On You” and “Cha Cha;” they’re catchy and muscular, and don’t try to be anything else.

The 11 tracks on Tinted Windows clock in a little over half an hour, but as short as the album is, it comes close to overstaying its welcome in a few spots. “Dead Serious” gains some life with Iha’s melodic guitar phrases, but treads water for the last minute. “Back With You” also stands out as near-filler, despite its atmospheric guitar.

One thing that makes Tinted Windows unique, though, is how unpretentiously straightforward the lyrics are. Sure, power pop has always focused on girls lost or never had, but almost always with some sort of cynicism or ironic chuckle running parallel. On this album, though, Hanson sings “without love, you can never go on” without a snicker. It’s refreshing, honestly. But the world-worn thoughtfulness that’s absent here is also what helps make bands like Teenage Fanclub or Big Star great.

But in the end, this album fits in well with the lineage that stretches back to the Beatles. I mean, some of the best power pop bands were just a bunch of wide-eyed kids trying to emulate the British Invasion with lots of boutique effect pedals. In this sense, comparing Tinted Windows to whatever art-folk is making blogs buzz is almost unfair. Power pop is almost like oral storytelling traditions: the story gets passed along from generation to generation with only minor tweaks. It’s a fun album that’s played really well: why fix what isn’t broken?