Considering the fact that Grenadine teams DC indie superstars Jenny Toomey (Tsunami) and Mark Robinson (Unrest, Air Miami) with equally respected producer Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive), it’s easy to expect great things from the project. Just like the band’s first record, Nopalitos delivers — the album backs off on some of Grenadine’s ironic lounge tendencies in favor of the sort of songwriting typical of Toomey and Robinson, and unsurprisingly winds up sounding either like Unrest or Tsunami on a track-by-track basis. Along with a few vaudevillian songs and some appealing production work from Defever, Nopalitos manages to live up to its members’ pedigrees, which is certainly a very good thing. – Nitsuh Abebe