This is solo effort from New York geek pop-rocker Ken Greenhouse. He plays all the instruments. He writes all the song. He designs the sleeve. You make out the cheques to Ken Greenhouse.
So what can be salvaged? In a world of frenzied attempts to find a new sound, a fresh start, a lift from nowhere … Ken is making another APPLES IN STEREO meets FOUNTAINS Of WAYNE tribute album. A gurning cheeky chappy throwback to the TURTLES and the RASCALS, but without the originality, CASAVERDE'S album is another one you needn't bother checking out.
It’s a pity really because it’s a likeable romp around those Beatles/Monkees echoes that still reverberate in American hearts. There are some, hey-show-me-that-again guitar riffs that whizz the pleasure hormones through the system ("Keep Laughing" stands out) and there are plenty of cute chord shifts. The songs don’t intrude. You could have them playing away there in the room when people came by and you wouldn’t be embarrassed. "What? Oh, something I got in the post" you’d say, waiting for the next question which probably wouldn’t come.
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You see it’s pop. And pop rises in a stream of bubbles or it's nothing. It isn’t quite POWER POP – the visceral drive of serious bass and drums is missing. And it was made two years ago. Even then it was stranded by history and the cruelty of selective amnesia that can’t help knowing that this has all been done before. Lots of times. Not always this well maybe. But our appetites are duller than they were, and we need fresher, sweeter tomatoes.
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