Sam Champion - Heavenly Bender

Genre rock Publisher North Street Records External Links Sam Champion Website Sam Champion MySpace

Heavenly Bender, which drops on July 22, is the successor to 2005's Slow Rewind, an album that garnered reviews of uncharacteristic meanness, damned with faint praise. Only once in these reviews, as writers complained that the rockers all sounded alike and speculated that the slow and pretty ballads would put listeners to sleep, did one reviewer allow that the New York foursome, who take their name from a TV weatherman, "don't suck."

No, the boys don't suck at all, and Heavenly Bender, in its best moments, offers savvy and polished doses of rock and roll, at a pace - twelve tracks, pumped out through thick and fuzzy guitars at a brisk and lean 38:37 - that feels right for the summertime.

This is not to say that the album gets off to a very good start; nor is it to say Heavenly Bender is an acceptable title for a collection of songs produced by grownups. An unfortunate share of the duds here take up the album's opening third, and the worst of them is the title track, in which frontman Noah Chernin, atop a texture of ardent ooh-wah backup vocals borrowed from the Shins, indulges an extremely silly conceit and, well, longs for a drink, on God - presumably since, with that clean, thin tenor, he isn't getting served by mortal bartenders. In "Heavenly Bender," Chernin's voice reminds me of Turin Brakes' Ollie Knights - it's an unlikely voice for this boozy material. Most of the time, Chernin cleverly manages to project toughness by sounding aloof. In "Like a Secret," when he tells his baby "You look cheap, you make me insane." He's not even interested enough to want to know the effect of the insult: "I don't mind, no, I don't mind / Get down on your own time."

Even in Slow Rewind, the band marshaled an unusual combination of influences. Their grumbling guitars drew comparison to Pavement, while Chernin's delivery recalled the Lou Reed of "Sunday Morning." In Heavenly Bender the sonic recipe gets more complex and the results are welcome. Following the short and peaceful instrumental "Space Heater" - which, after the uncertain first act, seems to be the band's way of taking a deep breath and buckling down - is a remarkable series of three songs. Country melancholy filters through the guitars and staggering saloon piano of "We Will Awaken"; groovy organ turns up to stir a little mellow psychedelia into "Dead Moon"; and in the pounding rocker "Direct," the angular lead guitar line carves through rumbling sludge, suggesting Pixies with a more hummable hook. Another seeming nod to Pixies is the let's-all-yell approach to ensemble singing featured in the merry clang of "Jealous Shakes" - "you got the jealous (jealous! jealous! ) shakes," howls Chernin, and everyone else, too: it sounds as though even the recording engineers were belting it out in the booth - and "There Was a Doubt." They've earned their violins by the time they reach "Lorraine," which has an unusually steady rhythm for a sad song.