Power Lloyd – World Cowboy / 2005 Dos Fabulos / 12 Tracks / http://www.powerlloyd.com / Reviewed 02 December 2005

To be honest, the introduction to this record scared me. I thought I was getting into a stodgy jazz record, and then “Matching Luggage” kicks in with a rock meets punk type of hard-hitting sound. The inclusion of horns towards the ending of the track brings Power Lloyd back into the heyday of third-wave ska and puts them into a pantheon which includes bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and the Spitvalves.

The next track, “Geneva By Day, NYC Nights” is a much more sedate type of sound but still maintains a catchy, punk-infused sound that really seems to be more of a hallmark of Power Lloyd than anything. “The Matador” brings the back to the halcyon days of 1999, when both Goo Goo Dolls and the New Radicals came out with a very clean and hard-hitting brand of rock. With the average track length being barely over three minutes, each of the songs on “World Cowboy” are short enough to really ingrain themselves into a listener’s mind. If the tracks tend to drag on (which is hard to believe that they would), they are short enough to suffer through only a short time before they end. Incorporating the ska like horns of “Matching Luggage” along with a disco-influenced bass line and synthesizers that would make The Red Hot Valentines proud, “Dish” is an eclectic track that expands the general sound of Power Lloyd. Interestingly enough, there is a tie back to the earliest days of the nineties with the EMF/Utah Saints-like “Hot Studel Uber Alles, which mimics the style of bands flawlessly (especially in their incorporation of a rock guitar line for the track’s hook.)

What seems to be the major thing holding Power Lloyd back is their reinvention which each track on “World Cowboy”; “New Orleans” is a harder-rocking Weezer track that really makes little in the way of sense with the nineties dance of “Hot Studel Uber Alles” or the fusion of “Dish”. While it is true that nearly all the tracks here are solid experiments in different genres, one really never learns about which of these genres or sounds are actually Power Lloyd. Hopefully the next Power Lloyd album will have more in the way of a framework that the disc tries to stick with; if this is done, there is no doubt that Power Lloyd could be one of the more solid bands out now.

Top Tracks: Loops, Dish

Rating: 5.5/10

[JMcQ]