Record Review - 3 July 29 2000

Tsar are a completely ridiculous glam pop band from L.A. with hooks ‘n’ tunes so sweet they’ll rot your teeth faster than a stadium full of Almond Joys. Naturally, this is a compliment.

You see, the thing is, there’s a shocking dearth of good guitar pop on the radio these days. Modern rock dreck like Matchbox 20 and Third Eye Bland give the genre a bad name, sounding more like Generation X jingle writers than actual bands. Basically: they got no flair.

Admittedly, Tsar’s vaguely androgynous look, coupled with a fascination for the intersection where glam and punk meet, is hardly an original conceit. To their credit, the band seems blissfully unaware of that fact. They attack their material with such a gleeful, manic zeal, they seems utterly convinced they invented the approach. Of course we know better, having heard vintage Bowie, Sweet and the Buzzcocks all before. Big deal. With the anthemic “Calling All Destroyers” or the sublime “Silver Shifter,” the band has crafted wide-screen, Technicolor pop that stands proudly with its predecessors.

Despite a few missteps, where a “gotta-get-it-on-the-radio” production agenda derails perfectly good songs, Tsar’s debut sounds like the perfect sunny day, top-down, speaker-rattling album. And believe me, that’s an increasingly rare and valuable commodity these days.

Tsar plays Chastain Park Amphitheater, Tues., Aug. 1.