Adam Marsland
Go West
[Karma Frog]
Get It at Amazon

The booklet for Go West has a 17-paragraph essay in which Adam Marsland explains why he's recorded a double-album set. Don't bother reading it. The album dedication is pretty good, though. This new release is dedicated to Matthew and Cesar Salgado, who went to a swap meet and bought a bunch of stuff (including instruments and computers) that burglars swiped from Marsland's house halfway through the album's recording. The Salgados returned everything to Marsland once they figured out the stuff was stolen, which saved the poor guy plenty of work.

There are also dedications to Marsland's dead brother (heart attack), his dead sister-in-law (murdered), and some other dead friends. So much crap happens to Marsland that there's no reason to rationalize a double album. He's got plenty to work through – especially since this is his first release since 2004's You Don't Know Me. Besides, Marsland is going easy on himself. Go West is technically a three-album set. That means two CDs containing 23 songs that echo a time when LPs had eight songs clocking in at around a half-hour.

Marsland starts Go West with the long intro of "Standing in Chicago," where funky electric piano gently glides into what will be one of several tributes to the airy California pop of Dennis Wilson. (Marsland has done regular live L.A. shows honoring the deceased Beach Boy's work.) The next songs touch on the power-pop of Marsland's work in the '90s with Cockeyed Ghost. The tunes are more glossy, though, and reliably rock at a mid-tempo beat worthy of The Raspberries. It's a little disconcerting when some techno touches show up in the disco of "I Don't Want To Dance With You," but then Marsland moves on to soft-rock worthy of Ambrosia or Daryl Hall & John Oates.

By then, you're only halfway through the first CD. Some manfully obscure references could start piling up, but there was only one '70s artist who truly combined dance, pop, funk, rock, and painfully incisive lyrics. Adam Marsland has made an Elton John album on the par of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Except with more of the Beach Boys, and the heterosexuality is a lot more believable. Also, the lovely final track isn't nearly as sappy as "Harmony" – but what is?