I'm not an expert, so I won't be telling you about all the movements and genres of music Supraluxe reminds me of, because I don't know any. What I do know is when I first bought the CD I did it to hear "Oleander" whenever I wanted,and I was hoping to find more tracks that had the same cloying sadness and bitterness in the lyrics. Fortunately, I didn't find an entire track list of "Oleander" clones. Supraluxe doesn't maintain a homogenous sound throughout their album the way Coldplay and Jack Johnson do; each track is different, calling a range of emotions. Sometimes the songs are angry, sometimes they're bitter, and sometimes just sad, but they add variety to their music. It took me a little while to get into the CD, because it didn't match what I had expected when I ordered it, but it was very well worth listening through, and I'm going to do just that many more times.
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The band is Supraluxe. The music is pop-rock. But it's not the pop of our youth. It's vital, not vintage. They've done the unexpected. They've reinvented pop. It's shades of beach-pop and mixes of euro-pop. It's folk-pop that's not militant but not saccharin on the lobes. It's Sergio Mendes mingled with the Beatles and splashed with the Beach Boys. It's Fleetwood Mac or Fogelberg with a grunged guitar. It's not homage. It's never a reiteration. It's relevant. And although the entire album touches on every aspect of pop music, it's not an echo. Each song affectionately caresses the scattered styles of pop music like smooth stones skipped over a placid pond. Yet, no song sinks deep into a pool of duplicated duplicity. 

The stand out songs are "Flower," "Chemical Fun," "The Big Comedown." The timing of the guitar at precisely three minutes into "Flower" is inspired. It recalls the Phil Spector wall of sound. Yet the guitar cleaves the wall and clarifies the arrangement. The reintroduction of the vocals returns the sound back to cohesion and pops it back into classic rock. And the layering of the vocals into that revolution makes an anthemic sound that's classic but not arthritic. It's definitive. The song "Chemical Fun" is pure bossa nova pop. And this is when the CD takes a step up. The lyrics cut close. They remind us that pop music doesn't have to be insipid. The song "The Big Comedown" is when Supraluxe defines its own sound.  The wedding of the lyric and the melodic is perceptive.  The irony of the lyrics of disappointment and a melody of optimism defines the dichotomy of hope & realism and the schism of societal action & personal reaction. It's real.

It's catchy & insightful lyrics with an infectious beat without a doctored sound. Pure Pop.  We can't claim they don't make 'um as good as they used to anymore.
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