Album Notes

On extra-pop group flapping, Flapping’s Montgomery Street—its second CD--the personnel included guitarist-vocalist Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket), bassist-vocalist Bruce Winter (Wasted Tape), guitarist-vocalist Joe Woodard and drummer-non-vocalist Tom Lackner (both are also in Headless Household and Dudley). It’s a succulent eclectic porridge, ready to consume, a rock-pop-folk-funk-Liverpudlian thing, alternative with a lower case a. Phillips gets down, funkily, on his tunes “Positively Double Negative” and “Eye Wannabe Likes Lye,” swirls around the pop wordplayful maze of “Sort This Out,” and belts out the quirky rave-up, “Doubly Doubting Thomas,” an anthem for skeptics and/or journalists. Winter courts weird, haunting beauty on his song, “The Frogs Are Alive” and the oblique ballad “Lazy Susan,” and gets deceptively rock-ish on “Back to the Station.” When not adding to the guitaruckus, Woodard swoons with envy about “My Favorite Guitar” and ponders materialism on the closing mini-epic, “Without.” Beneath and around it all, Lackner takes left turns towards inner logic on the drums.