Kelley Stoltz is well-versed in iconic/eclectic
'60s rock—The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd—and he
synthesizes bits of them into weird, twittering pop songs. Consequently, Circular
Sounds,
Stoltz's fourth long-player, sounds an awful lot like The Kinks—if The
Kinks had been left alone in an elementary-school music classroom with an
8-track and some mallets. Circular Sounds is brimming with unidentifiable gasps and
skronks, and while it occasionally seems like Stoltz, a longtime advocate of
home recording, spends a little too much time knee-deep in obscure noisemakers,
his scrappiest tracks are also his best. Songs like "To Speak To The Girl"
(honest refrain: "It's hard / To speak to the girl") are charming and tinted
with just enough whimsy, while the acoustic "Something More" is genuinely
lovely, a perfect showpiece for Stoltz's high, winsome mew.