Album Review

Santa Barbara’s very own Sugarcult serves fans a second offereing of its own brand of pseudo-punk in the quartet’s “Palm Trees and Power Lines.”
By Jen Clay
A&E Editor

Bubbling just below the mainstream radar, Sugarcult has made a name for itself touring the country with the likes of more established artists including Blink-182, The Hives and Radiohead.   

While successfully touring under the “Vans Warped” banner in 2001, the quartet sold homemade T-shirts and copies of their debut record, 2001’s “Start Static,” out of the back of a van. The album has sold 300,000 copies. With indie-giant Artemis Records backing the guys in time for the release of their second offering, “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” the Santa Barbara-based pseudo-punks seem to be headed for mainstream Ataris-like success, or at least, Artemis hopes so. But ultimately, Sugarcult fail to define their sound on “Palm Trees” and end up with a few strong tracks, a few good ideas and your obligatory power-pop filler.

The musical equivalent of Simple Plan’s less popular and angrier older brother, Sugarcult, which counts Elvis Costello, The Clash and Nirvana among its influences, wastes no time cutting to the chorus of “Palm Trees” tunes, including album opener “She’s a Blade.” About a friend’s dysfunctional relationship with a conniving girlfriend, “Blade” sees Sugarcult offer metaphoric advice in the track’s chorus: “She’s the blade / and you’re just paper.”

The album’s first single, the uptempo “Memory,” is slickly produced, well-performed and somewhat bland, no doubt intended to introduce fans of today’s mainstream postmodern punk to the energetic sounds of more Blink-182 musical offspring. Instead, Sugarcult shines on the album’s angrier tunes. “Crying” manages to escape the clichéd chord progressions of the genre and even allows lead vocalist Tim Pagnotta ample opportunity to get his throaty growl on.

Another strong cut, the poppier ode-to-long-distance-love “December’s Gone” matches the verse-to-chorus caliber but the lyrics seem more typical of a Hanson tune: “All I really ever need is you.” Seems our eyeliner-wearing band members aren’t so hardcore after all. In fact, most of “Palm Trees’ ” tunes center around lost love or the loneliness of the road.

Performing within a genre that encourages individualism and revolution, Sugarcult rarely embraces the opportunities the genre affords. A select number of tracks including the bass-driven 1980s throwback “Destination Anywhere,” the introspective, ballad-esque “Back to California” and the aggressive “What You Say” manage to capture the spirit and experimentation of 1970s punk, albeit packaged under a helping of power-pop.

 “Palm Trees and Power Lines” will be released April 13.

Submitted  April 1, 2004