Tinted Windows

Tinted Windows
(S-Curve Records)

The history of the “supergroup” reads like something of a pop-cultural rollercoaster ride: For every Cream, CSNY, and the Postal Service, we’re forced to recall the likes of Blind Faith, Eyes Adrift, and VH1’s Mission: Man Band. The promise of transcendent musical fusion isn’t always fulfilled when storied successes join forces, no matter how hard we can rock to their individual catalogs.

The painful truth is that, with only a few notable exceptions, combining forces seems more a method of driving sales than striving for a higher art. With so many recent supergroups having crashed and burned on the road to recapturing global domination, the idea of a musical mash-up in 2009 is surprising to say the least. What’s more surprising, perhaps, is that four men whose respective heydays span some four decades have joined forces to create Tinted Windows, a band whose debut album is, for the most part, a rousing success.

Vocalist Taylor Hanson of Hanson, guitarist James Iha, formerly of the Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, and Bun E. Carlos, of Cheap Trick (WTF? yes, Cheap Trick) have moved pretty quickly since signing with S-Curve Records at the end of February. Appearances on Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel, not to mention a full album and music video for their debut single, “Kind of a Girl,” read like a quest for attention as opposed to time taken to put out some genuinely good music. Fear not: As we all thaw out of the cryogenic freezer that was another Buffalo winter, a good old-fashioned, roll-down-the-windows pop/rock-and-roll album is precisely what the doctor ordered.

Employing the obvious technique of dividing their self-titled debut perfectly in half, the men of Tinted Windows spend six tracks proving to you that they can turn out a perfectly respectable indie-pop album, while using the other six to deliver the promise of the guitar-driven, bass-heavy rock music that you’d expect from the likes of Iha and Carlos.

These guys aren’t exactly breaking any new lyrical ground, with most of the tracks ruminating either on love or the unpredictability of women, but man, do they sound great. Hanson has ditched the impressive vocal acrobatics that permeate the records made with his family band, a move that makes it a lot easier to respect the awesome sound coming off of this album. The rocking “Messing With My Head” and radio-ready “Without Love” are some of the disc’s highlights, but the undisputable king is “New Cassette,” a bonus track that comically nudges at the (implied) bygone relevance of the group’s members. If nothing else, they prove themselves wrong here, with each number just as enjoyable as the last.

The sonic chemistry of these guys is maybe the most impressive aspect of the effort, especially considering that at least two of these men’s individual acts are almost criminally underrated: Fountains of Wayne and Hanson have both been building impressive bodies of work over the past 10 years, but their singles “Stacy’s Mom” and “MMMBop,” respectively, have limited their growth beyond the occasional ironic mention within the pop-culture zeitgeist. This project gives these guys the opportunity to move out of the corner into which their early stardom has painted them, and really make some good, respectable music.

I’m personally not holding my breath for anymore forgotten musicians to join forces and do what these four talented musicians have succeeded in doing: making the archaic practice of supergrouping unexpectedly current. Forget Color Me Badd—you can color Tinted Windows pretty frigging good.

—brad deck