Summer's Over

It's official. The creme stand in Montpelier is closing for the season. Sunday is the last day.

For me, that signals the end of the summer. Going down there after dinner with the kids is a fun trip during the summer. I know we can always go Ben & Jerry's in town but it isn't the same. The creme stand has that old time throwback feel to it and since it's so popular, you always run into somebody you know. That never happens at Ben & Jerry's for whatever reason.

The problem with the summer being over is that I've failed to post about all of the sunshine coated summer pop albums I've been enjoying. So, I'm going to dump a few of them in one post. Better late than never.

The Essex Green
The Essex Green are now Brooklynites but they started here. So, I'm going to call them a Vermont pop band. And when a band releases such a good album, it makes you want to bend the rules to claim them for your little corner of the world. Cannibal Sea is 100% pure pop goodness. There's not a lot of variety to it but it's sameness doesn't bother me.

The Essex Green | This Isn't Farm Life | Buy

Saturday Looks Good to Me
Band names that double as a sentence kind of annoy me. So, Saturday Looks Good to Me started in a hole for me. However, I discovered them just when the sun was getting the upper hand on the northern chill in April. It was the perfect music to kick start the summer. Stuff that just makes your head and toes go thump thump thump in step with each other as your car window rolls down.

Saturday Looks Good to Me | Lift Me Up | Buy

The Morning After Girls
The Morning After Girls aren't exactly summer pop but they ceretainly aren't dark dreary tunes for November. Hailing from Australia, their album Prelude EPs 1 & 2 are stacked with rockers that straddle the line between retro new wave with the heavy echo and psychedelia with their acoustic rhythm guitars and sound effects layered in.

The Morning After Girls | Straight Thru You | Buy

Mojave 3
Mojave 3 is a band that I had heard of in the past but never heard. The way I learned about them is I read a review that said their new album was quite a departure from their earlier albums and very poppy. Well, I can't vouch for how big of a departure Puzzles Like You are from their earlier albums but I will atesst to its poppiness. It's there.

Mojave 3 | Bright Lights | Buy

Pelle Carlberg
You didn't think I was going to make it through a post about summer pop albums without mentioning any Swedes, did you? I actually briefly posted about Carlberg a long time ago but that was before his album Everything.Now! had come out in the US in late winter. If you liked the early Belle & Sebastian albums, then Pelle Carlberg is your man.

Pelle Carlberg | Summer of '69 | Buy

Darondo
I posted about Darondo last winter when I was talking about Gilles Peterson's new mix CD Digs America: Brownsville USA. However, I guess a lot of people loved his soul stunner, "Didn't I", from that album because Ubiquity records release a bunch of Darondo's songs on a new album called Let My People Go. If you like Al Green, stop whatever you are doing and buy this album. You'll love it.

Darondo | How I Got Over | Buy

Oh well. Time for foliage season.

Only seven months until the creme stand opens again.