The Webb Brothers: Maroon

Most bands need to experience the perils of success for years to arrive at the jaded view of good times already found in The Webb Brothers' second album. Following the demo-collection-turned-CD Beyond The Biosphere, Maroon finds the Webbs (the sons of "Wichita Lineman" and "MacArthur Park" songwriter Jimmy Webb) using dense, catchy pop songs to explore a hipster wasteland where not living fast and dying young is an affront to good taste. The group's perspective remains dour throughout, but comes cloaked in songs so instantly ingratiating that it's not hard to overlook the sadness just below the surface. Though the band hails from Chicago, Maroon makes no attempt to hide its creators' anglophilic tendencies, no doubt in part thanks to ace producer Stephen Street, a veteran of numerous Smiths and Blur albums. His crisp production gives the Webbs a solid base for their ambitious, eclectic songwriting. "The Liar's Club" captures the theatrical archness of Rufus Wainwright, while the could-be hit single "Summer People" combines a Johnny Marr-like guitar line with the kind of insistent thump usually confined to techno compilations. The latter song provides one of Maroon's rare moments of unmitigated happiness, an emotion overwhelmed by tracks like "Fluorescent Lights," an expression of burned-out desperation recounted in waltz time. "A little of this and a little of that / A little too much and the sex gets so flat," goes a typical line, which has the ring of a proverb learned the hard way. If the band's songs—many of which feature death in a supporting role—are even fractionally autobiographical, then The Webb Brothers grew up too fast and barely lived to tell the tale. It may not have been fun at the time, but the exceptional Maroon captures a band with no shortage of methods for converting misery into melody.