The Broken West

“Perfect Games“
from the album Now or Heaven
2008
iTunes

Los Angeles gets even sunnier on the latest from L.A. band The Broken West. “Perfect Games,“ the first mp3 from their forthcoming Merge sophomore LP, Now or Heaven, sounds like it’s aiming for, if not heaven, then at least a city of angels and palm trees — straightahead backbeat, thrumming bass line, chiming guitars, more of the same from the keyboard, and a bright melody sung with double-tracking so clean and sparkling it takes a few listens to notice there are lyrics. They’re warm-weather lyrics, too: “We sit around, looking for flaws in the diamonds / We sit around, spilling our ice cubes on the lawn,” begins singer/guitarist Ross Flournoy. There’s a post-Joshua Tree sheen to the Broken West’s power-pop this time that wasn’t as evident in the handclaps and wheezing keyboards of 2007’s I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On. By the end, “Perfect Games” sounds like it could belong to the fantasy city of a Southern California band longing for home. “We kick around, sticking it out in the darkness,” Flournoy sings, adding, “We waste our time, when we could be righting every wrong.” It’s a subtle shift, but then, this is power-pop, not hair-metal.