Originally published in Verbicide issue #6

This album belongs in the adult contemporary section. Imagine Natalie Merchant with a raspier voice and Phish is her band, except the band doesn’t go on an impromptu 20-minute jam session and the crowd isn’t a bunch of neo-hippies but rather a mid-40s crowd whose favorite composer is Yanni. The lyrical delivery is just plain terrible and deserve a rewrite; they don’t contribute to the flow of the songs. The musicians play their instruments well, but as a whole, the music sounds like post-contemporary acid rock palatable for the mid-lifers. Alpha Cat’s Pearl Harbor is for either that crowd or closet Michael Bolton fans.

(Alpha Cat, PO Box 3803, Jersey City, NJ 07303-3803)