Varnaline: Sweet Life

Varnaline is the sort of curious, semi-exploratory band that never makes the same record twice, instead messing around with recording wonderfully realized pop songs in more or less standard genres. Therefore, it's no surprise, and actually pretty cool, that Sweet Life goes back and forth between thoughtful, yearning, string-accompanied pop and something closely approaching Southern rock. Of course, the definitions break down, as they must, but pleasantly so; it's a great, surprising, natural jolt to suddenly hear a trombone pop up in the trailer-park ballad "Saviours," or realize that there's a glockenspiel plinking along in a love song to a certain area on the lunar surface. Of course, the tragedy with groups like Varnaline is that they're usually shuffled off to the fringe by descriptions like this one, so rest assured that the instrumentation and stylings are absolutely seamless, adding to rather than detracting from the songs in a display of quietly effortless pop craftsmanship. Plus, you get good straightahead rockers, like "Underneath The Mountain" and "Now You're Dirt," in the bargain. The result is more consistent than it may appear, beautifully evocative, and infinitely listenable; simply a great record.