Smart, sassy, and with a major emphasis on cool,
Caviar's self-titled debut is Midwestern power pop that's just as intent on being sexy as it is on providing air guitarworthy riffs that'll likely cause some kid to bust a few mattress springs. Buoyed by the success of the Charlie's Angels film, which features
Caviar's silly yet infectious lounge rock song "Tangerine Speedo," this Chicago group led by Blake Smith (formerly of
Fig Dish) effortlessly tosses out irresistible radio-friendly glam-inspired tunes. Sure, the band owes a heavy debt to
the Rolling Stones,
T. Rex,
Cheap Trick, and
the New York Dolls, and a cynic could easily play spot-the-influence on nearly every one of these 11 tracks, but
Caviar is too much fun for that. It's familiar without being derivative, despite the fact that "Goldmine" rips a refrain straight from a
Jerry Reed country song and neatly livens it up. After all, it's hard to fault a leader like Smith when he can pen a line like "She's Thomas Jefferson/I'm William Howard Taft," place it over an arena-ready guitar, and not make it sound ironic. Smith's clean and wide-ranging vocals, perhaps a tad reminiscent of
Robin Zander, are well suited for both his sarcasm and self-righteousness, as well as for the soaring chorus that propels past the big beats of "OK Nightmare." From the digital cockiness of "Flawed Like a Diamond" to the bombastic, striptease power chords of "Sugarless,"
Caviar connects the retro cool of
Urge Overkill with the unselfconscious attitude and studio gimmicky of
Garbage for a glossy, hard-to-resist debut. ~ Todd Martens