Monday, July 7, 2014

REVIEW: Donovan Blanc - Donovan Blanc

At first listen by a pop music fan, Donovan Blanc may appear to be the result of careful and supremely knowledgeable selections from the one of the worlds most complete collections of good but obscure vinyl from the '60s.  It is a stellar set of blissed-out, psychedelic guitar pop with some surf and Brazilian touches at times, and our music fan likely would search for the liner notes to discover what long lost bands wrote such timeless music before becoming suburban dads, coaching baseball and selling insurance, writing wills or teaching history to high school students.  The surprise awaiting this fan is that Donovan Blanc is not a collection of old songs from various groups, but the debut album from Joseph Black and Raymond Swab.  And the New Jersey duo, formerly playing fuzzy pop as Honeydrum and now calling themselves Donovan Blanc, have announced their new venture via what may be the most irresistible record of earworms to be released this summer.

The album is packed with delicious tunes.  We previously featured the Brazilian influenced "Minha Menina" and the jangle pop "Hungry A Long Time", so we won't repeat them here.  But I can't resist offering you a few more streams.  Below is the jangling "Can't Wait To Meet You", which sounds like it should have been on the charts in '66, the gentle "Girlfriend", and "Oh Donna", a sure candidate for the last dance of the evening at the school dance.  These are the kind of pop songs that seem like they've always been with you, and you'll always be happy to have them.







Donovan Blanc is out now via Brooklyn's Captured Tracks.

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