It's a CD review day!

Dogs Die In Hot Cars is not only a public service reminder, it's also a band and their only release, Please Describe Yourself, was issued in 2004. From Scotland, the band explores a genre that we usually like to call Brit-pop, meaning an act that mines the heritage of the Beatles and other UK groups who play a highly evolved form of pop with tuneful songs, a broad battery of production techniques to polish the sound, and a sort of cheery emotional distance from the material (other people have their views on the subject, but now you have mine).

The most striking thing for me when I first heard this disk was how much the sound resembles that of XTC, a Beatles-obsessed band that flourished in the 1980s. Even a song title like "Godhopping" manages to simultaneously evoke XTC's 1986 album, Skylarking and the track "Dear God" from that same disk. Singer Craig Macintosh's voice has a startling resemblance to XTC's singer, Andy Partridge--you may find that if you know the sound of XTC, you'll have a hard time adjusting to the sound of this band without automatically thinking of XTC. This isn't a bad thing. XTC did some sensational work back in the day.

Still, Dogs Die In Hot Cars stand on their own as a band and they play irony-laced songs like "I Love You 'Cause I Have To" with it's relaxed ska rhythm and keyboard touches in an effortless, easy approach. There are energetic songs, but the band makes it sound like it was no trouble to make these. In spots, songs like "Apples & Oranges" (OK, XTC as an album called Oranges & Lemons--I'm not making this up!) and "Who Shot The Baby?" reveal an awkward way with more complex rhythms that offset the better tracks. There isn't much loud electric guitar, making this a pleasing listen shot through with piano and carefully rhythmic guitar patterns--if it lacks a little intensity, there's a yearning quality running in Mr. Macintosh's delivery that makes up for that.

8 out of 10

CDs listened to today:

• Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas for Piano, disk 7
  
• Dogs Die In Hot Cars: Please Describe Yourself
• Alfred Schnittke: Symphony No. 8