Posted on: March 10, 2013 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Indie pop mob, The Sharp Things, who after 15 years of toil should need no introduction, (but still do), released the first of their 4-album Dogs Of Bushwick series, Green Is Good on Tuesday, February 26th (Dive Records) to kind reception from the press folk.

MAGNET says, “[Green Is Good is] an obvious logical successor to the band’s four previous LPs, all strong candidates, in their time, for best record you never heard last year.”

Whilst SPHERE MUSIC gabs, “Interesting lyrics, awesome melodies and intelligent arrangements… A refreshing protest against the lackluster styles that have plagued our radio and internet these days. ”

And THOSE WHO DIG muses, “… a weird fusion of The Talking Heads, REM, and Midnight Oil. And yet it doesn’t really sound anything like that either.”

BLURT said, “Brilliant…These songs are among some of the best in the band’s decade-plus existence,” and then took it one better by posting the band’s official video for album single, “Goodbye To Golders Green,” an upbeat amalgam of, maybe, Big Star and Steely Dan, on Wednesday.

Directed by Alex Brown, the video sees the band, singer/songwriter/pianist, Perry Serpa, guitarists Jim Santo and Michelle Caputo, violist Aisha Cohen, violinist Andrea Dovalle, bassist James Pertusi and newest member, flutist/keyboardist Adrienne Day, (drummer Steve Gonzalez, in absentia), through a mock group therapy session, and casts TST main man Serpa’s real life shrink, Roger Feldman.

Of the theme choice, Serpa says, “The whole “trust fall” sequence kept looping over in my head, in particular. I had to listen to the song about 80 times in order for the rest of it to fall into place… It’s incredibly stupid, and we’re proud of it.”

The rest of Green Is Good, produced by Billy Polo, who as well, is currently re-envisioning the “Lost Archives” of Reggae’s legendary VP Records outpost, is a veritable genre bounce-around. Thematically, the rest of the album deals with the affliction of greed and class disparity, kicking off with the anthemic “Blame The Bankers,” cascading into “The Piper,” featuring lovely vocal support from Mary Lorson (Saint Low, Madder Rose) ambling through the starving-artist plight with “Here Comes The Maestro” and the series’ title track, “Dogs Of Bushwick,” and through to Serpa/Santo coup “Lights,” “I Know You’re Gonna Break My Heart,” (with help from the wonderful Laura Cantrell) and wraps with “Back Down The Rabbit Hole,” a disco song about the debt crisis.

Overall, Dogs Of Bushwick, the result of a 3-year reconvention at Santo and Pertusi’s celebrated Brooklyn recording studio, The Kennel, the band turned out so much music in said time that the output exceeds their entire three-album back catalog– 30-something songs! Expect straight up grabs for the perfect pop song, the signature big symphonic pieces, experimental bits, plaintive torch songs, space-aged love songs, more protest songs and other good toss.

For more information, please visit: http://www.thesharpthings.com

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