Picture it: it’s summer, you have a cooler full of turkey sandwiches and lemonade and a ten-dollar Boogie Board from K-Mart, and you are headed to the beach with your older brother driving because you don’t have your license. Most importantly, the windows are down and the radio is UP. You remember those days? For me, this was music like Toad the Wet Sprocket’s "Walk On the Ocean," REM’s "Losing My Religion," Duran Duran’s "Ordinary World"… I could go on for a really long time. (Ooooo, you remember "Connected" by Stereo MC’s? Go download it NOW!) For you, this music may have been Queen or Buddy Holly or Rush or The Beach Boys or U2 or The Police. (Wow, I have just dropped SO many names!) Anyway, the point is this: there are some artists that have made an indelible impression on you and defined what your concept of the perfect melody or the immortal pop song sounds like. And back then, this all rocked. I mean honestly rocked. These were the days when a number one Billboard album was good from start to finish instead of feeling like a single with eleven songs of filler. Alright, so I’m hoping that by now, I’ve painted a picture of the kind of music I’m taking about. It’s beyond critique, you might say. Somewhere along the line, bands decided that it was OK to quit doing this kind of stuff.

The experimentation of the last few decades has led to some incredible and groundbreaking material (I’m not going to drop any more names; you fill in the blanks here), but you still have to smile when you hear those old songs and wish that there was someone around making something new that would be as great as the old days without sounding dated. This is a delicate job, and this is exactly why you have to appreciate a band like Mae.

These guys manage to cram every bit of the perfect-pop-song charm into everything they do while rocking out thoroughly, and they don’t sound the slightest bit dated. Brilliant and innovative guitars, rhythm that just won’t quit, and keyboard-driven atmosphere that fills in the gaps all compliment striking vocals to make a straight-forward rock album that you need to buy now. It’s really kind of mind-blowing that someone could put together an entire album of songs this strong, but hey, for 14 bucks or whatever it cost, I’ll leave the boggle to someone else and enjoy this record.

Key track: "Runaway"