The Tyde: Twice

If Alan McGee had started Creation Records in '60s California instead of '80s Britain, he would have scooped up The Tyde. On Twice, its second album, the band layers keyboard and guitar without obscuring a rich jangle and a sense of song. Like his brother, Beachwood Sparks' Brent Rademaker (who plays bass here), singer, songwriter, and guitarist Darren Rademaker displays a good sense of musical history without letting it overwhelm his own voice. Of course, it helps that he's had time to find it. A fortysomething scene veteran, he invests his songs with musings about the frustrations of band life. The regretful "Breaking Up The Band," for instance, takes a snapshot of the moment when musicians stop taking drugs to feed creativity and start taking them just to feed the beast. It's the dark flip-side to "Henry VIII," in which Rademaker ponders whether smoking slightly fewer joints might have allowed him to get ahead in the world. There's a payoff to the frustration, however, and Twice's best track, "Blood Brothers," celebrates it. "Do you wanna know what it feels like to be a man / Try spending 25 years in a band," Rademaker sings, and it's clear that, for him at least, there's no other way to live. That commitment comes through in both the singing and the songwriting. Rademaker fronts the group with a delicate swagger, and though The Tyde sounds terrific doing ballads (particularly "Breaking Up The Band"), it sounds even better when it stops holding back. Whether pacing through a pop gem like "Go Ask Yer Dad" or the surf goof "Shortboard City," Rademaker and his players find music that should more than compensate for the frustrations of making it.