Golden Shoulders "Kin" (Welcome Home)
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Monday. Jun 05, 12:03 AM
Proof that good pop is far from dead.

Will pop music ever get old? After over half a century and thousands upon thousands of hit records and songs, and despite countless deviations from the basic pop song template (many of them hitmakers in their own right), it seems obvious that pop is far from dead. Adam Kline, the primary creative force behind Golden Shoulders, knows this as well as anyone: and he wants you to know it, too.

Perhaps their rather goofy name means to refer to the giants upon which Kline and company proudly stand. Their new EP, Kin, is 13 minutes of brilliant homage to pop innovators, with nods to The Beatles and Gram Parsons managing to commingle – sometimes within the same track – without sounding confused or derivative. While not remarkably original, Golden Shoulders are a band with a sound all its own, even though its lineup has been in constant rotation since the band’s inception in 2001.

Kline seems to pull this off by sticking to a rule of simplicity: the songs speak for themselves with little or no embellishment. Only a few drops of reverb even made it to the mixing board: vocals, guitars, pianos, and drums come through dry as a bone, making for a very organic, fully present record. And it sounds fantastic, except for the crappy sounding synth piano on “Daughters,” which is nevertheless a fantastic track.

While Kline writes somewhat pedestrian lyrics, he is clearly not short on wit. But it’s his talent and skill as a singer that really make an impression. Kline is a great vocalist and he makes it sound easy to come up with an attractive melody, but he never shows off; for Kline – unlike makers of more fluff-infused pop – the song is what is important, not the fact that he’s the guy who wrote it and is singing it.

He gets some good help, too. On “Be Warned,” Kline takes a back seat to the sweet harmonizing of one Elissa Spencer; he knows when a voice matches a song better than his own ever could alone, and Spencer’s voice makes the simple pop ballad into a sexy, haunting kind of siren song. Then there is the timeless, instantly gratifying hook of the cynical “There’s No Reason,” which becomes unshakable after only a couple of listens.

It’s no doubt easier to release a great record of five tracks than it is to produce an entire album’s worth of good music, but that doesn’t diminish in the least the greatness of these five songs. Kline seems interested primarily in Golden Shoulders making good music. With Kin, they have.
www.goldenshoulders.com
www.welcomehomerecords.com

Listen to a song from this album in our Radio section!

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Jason Bronson

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