A-plus work from Power Pop's top student

Review Score: (10/10)
This is not just Matthew Sweet's best record; it may be most people's best record, an irresistibly catchy, infectious, addicting combination of sinister lyrics, inescapable hooks, jangly guitar riffs, and Sweet's own sweet-and-sour vocals. He doesn't so much lift from his influences as he liquifies them down to their essential magic, and then strains them through his unique gifts, to come up with something new and invaluable. "Time Capsule" is a great lover's lament, featuring a Fleetwood Mac-like shimmering vocal and barbed-wire guitar; "Devil with the Green Eyes" takes on jealousy with a kind of sugar-coated menace; "Ugly Truth" features a Dylanesque snarl, presented twice on the album, once as a folk song and then as a punky rocker; "What Do You Know?" is a cheerful kiss-off. Sweet deserves to sell a gajillion albums, and a gajillion more concert tickets; he puts on a ... good show- I saw him once, at Liberty Lunch in Austin, and he flat-out rocked that place to the ground. He's putting a commercially unpopular (at least at the moment) sound, and doing it better than just about anybody else; the next time you hear the phrase "pop music", forget those ... boy bands and listen to Matthew Sweet, so you know what the term should really mean: something as cool as this.

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