REVIEW: XL427 "Yesterdays Forever" EP

...as founder of upstart Dayton label Poptek Records, Andy Ingram seems acutely aware that his passion for pop music is not always in vogue. Although primarily serving as drummer for perennial indie pop faves Reutschle, the elusive pop talent Kris N., or the teenage Wake Up, Mordecai, Ingram has finally stepped out to front his own outfit, XL427, on the Yesterdays Forever EP...

...throughout the disc, XL427 revels in a wide rang of unapologetic pop flavors. On opener "Killers No More", the stark shoegaze and barely-there vocal delivery ebb and flow around the elegant fizz of a loping guitar. It's Ingram's economical application of sumptuous pop hooks that propel Yesterdays Forever. From the haunting, reverb-drenched piano line on "Lover's Leap" to the Anglophilic melodic descent on "The Privileged", XL427 display an amazing command over the pop textbook. With an acoustic windmill call-to-arms, the bedroom anthem "It's Not Just Pink, It's New Wave Pink" finds Ingram at his most infectious. Blending bubblegum and Britpop into a potent pastiche, the track serves as an unabashed pop manifesto with the lyrical payoff: "These are the best days of all time". On "I Like the Quiet in You", the band cash in some of their goodwill for introspective drone. As the longest track on the album, it's bulk sags the disc near the end. Fortunately, the bounce of "The Privileged" rebounds and exits before wearing out its sunny charms. With it's chorus of "On our most perfect days/All your ways are pure", XL427 strike a perfect assessment of what is best in perfect pop music...