To fans of a certain brand of winsome indie pop, the name Allen Clapp is nearly sacrosanct: Clapp’s brand of sweet and sour lyrics, impossibly catchy tunes, chirpy vocals, and extravagant arrangements, under his own name and as the leader of the Orange Peels is the ne plus ultra of American twee pop. That is, until Steve Goldberg and the Archenemies. This full-length debut by Pittsburgh-based singer/songwriter Steve Goldberg out-Clapps Clapp with an exhilarating blast of sunshine pop melodies, clever (occasionally clever-clever) and sweetly romantic lyrics, wonderfully over the top arrangements featuring perfectly deployed strings, horns, glockenspiels, and woodwinds, and an almost palpable love of all the classic ’60s and ’70s AM pop hits that never turns into mere mimicry. (OK, almost never: the chorus melody of the album’s most intoxicating tune, the glorious new-love stunner “Julia” comes uncannily close to that of the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” at one point.) Those allergic to wide-eyed playfulness will find the whole thing impossibly cute, but like Clapp, Goldberg is such a sharp, inventive songwriter that songs like the tongue-in-cheek pastiche “The Spy” and its wistful ballad doppelganger “The Spy, Pt. 2″ are more than the sum of their influences. Steve Goldberg and the Archenemies could likely end up one of the great lost pure pop records of 2007. – Stewart Mason
more »