If you know the name Frank Brown, there’s a good chance you have a Flight Of Mavis and/or Buzz Zeemer record or two on your shelf. (Welcome. It’s a small but, as far as I’m concerned, intelligent club.) Both of those Brown-led, Philly-based outfits were pop bands at heart, with traces of R.E.M. and NRBQ on the former and shadings of Elvis Costello and Graham Parker on the latter.
Out Of The Blue is the kind of mostly flash-free effort that you’d expect from a skilled but unassuming journeyman, and it’s the savvy-veteran moments that will probably win you over. Listen to how the chorus of “Always Down” (a song about buzz-kill personified) changes to “weighs down” in the outro, or the way in which a line that ends “like thunder” crashes into the bridge of the Costello-ish “Peace of Mind”, well, like thunder.
The closest the record comes to dazzling is on the album’s poppiest pair, “She Just Wants To Be Loved” and “No Resistance”, both testaments to the almightiness of the hook. And the closest it comes to disappointing is “Don’t Say You Never”, a bit of low-cal SoCal country-rock that temporarily turns Brown and band (which includes Figgs bassist Pete Donelly) into…wait for the punchline…the Philadelphia Eagles.
Out Of The Blue ends on one of its highest notes courtesy of “Greatest Love”, which comes off equal parts ’67 Beatles and ’96 Joe Henry — with, of course, a little ’91 Flight Of Mavis and ’98 Buzz Zeemer around the edges.