CD Review: Broken Promise Keeper -- Ice Cold Pop

Broken Promise Keeper

Ice Cold Pop

By Scott Roberts

In the recent movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the wide-eyed, backwards-aging title character is asked about whether he’s too old to be working on a tugboat. “There’s no age limit,” he innocently replies, “as long as you can do the work.” I suppose the same could be said for writing and releasing pop songs tinged with youthful exuberance and adolescent longing as evidenced by the new release Ice Cold Pop from Decatur’s Broken Promise Keeper.

The “band” is actually just one guy, Rob Stuart, a one-man juggernaut in his mid-40s who writes, plays and produces everything on the CD (except for a couple of guitar parts). The capable musician, who enjoyed some regional success in the North Carolina jangle-pop band One Plus Two WAY back in the 1980s, has put together a pleasant collection of mostly upbeat, peppy pop tunes that bring to mind a simpler, more melodic time that “older” listeners will find nostalgic and younger listeners might find revelatory.

The songs on Ice Cold Pop are generally three-minute, no-frills affairs driven mostly by electric guitar (“Directions,” “Fake It”) with occasional piano or keyboard flourishes (“Worship From Afar,” Life is Killing Me”). The last two songs on the CD, “Secret” and “Goodbye,” are acoustic dominated numbers and are probably the best songs on the disc. Perhaps Stuart should explore this avenue more fully for future releases.

Lyrically, Stuart will never be mistaken for Dylan or Costello (though there is some nice wordplay on the cliché-bashing “Once”), but the songs are well-crafted and mostly conversational, which fits well with his tuneful, if indistinctive, voice. Overall, Ice Cold Pop is not world-changing or overly innovative, but most power pop does not aspire to such lofty goals and Broken Promise Keeper is doing a worthy job of carrying that genre’s torch into the 21^st century.     

Comments

[Terry @ Al Rio Art]

Thanks for the review ScoRo!