Washington, D.C.'s Q and Not U took five years to transition from panicky, post-punk ruckus-makers to something approximating a Dischord Records pop band. Formerly a cubist nightmare of angular riffs and stuttering drum beats, Q and Not U ended their run with 2004's Power, whose hooky opener "Wonderful People" more or less announced that whatever the band had been in the past was done. Drummer John Davis was less present on that record, which perhaps accounts for the shift from tricky change-ups to quasi-disco. Q and Not U disbanded the next year after they had, to paraphrase, reached their goals as Q and Not U. Turns out both Davis and fellow founder Christopher Richards had new goals, neither of which sounded anything like each others'. Davis' first proper full length alongside D.C. singer-songwriter Laura Burhenn as Georgie James is bridge-bridge-chorus-heavy power pop, as blissfully laid-back as Q and Not U were wound up.
Davis and Burhenn orignally bonded over a shared love of 70s power pop that's translated unfiltered into Places. They share vocals on nearly every song, which helps to recreate the bristling A.M. radio/"Yellow Pills"-era vibe that saturates the album. It's difficult isolating what makes a great pop song, but it's simple to isolate what's good about Places: On-the-beat drum stomps, frequent handclaps, endless bridges, swaying piano and downstroked guitar, more handclaps, and almost-cultish good cheer. "Need Your Needs", the LP's first single, veers a bit from those traits: Davis' rhythms and guitar are closer to Q and Not U's last stand, but when Burhenn comes in, it's all piano, shakers, and roses. They make a good combination-- nuanced drum patterns meet big, toothy melodies.
"Comfortable Headphones", Places' hookiest track, brings to mind fellow power-pop aficionados the New Pornographers. But Carl Newman's group updated power pop's admittedly shallow concerns; Georgie James maintains the genre's self-reflection: songs about writing songs, chorus that extol the joys of singing together, as if any real problems could be solved in real time. "Comfortable Headphones"'s title comes from this line: "We want you here at home/ With your demos/ And your comfortable headphones." An even simpler sentiment preceeds it on "Henry and Hanzy: "I think you should stop and sing along."
Georgie James' other nod to indie is in Davis's uncannily Bob-Pollard-esque voice. The resemblance is so striking that, at certain moments it sounds as if Burhenn is singing along to an outtake to the Ric Ocasek-produced Do the Collapse. In contrast to Davis, Berhenn's vocals are warm, if a little nondistinctive. That's the one problem— Places is power pop all the way, which means that sometimes everything starts to blend into an undifferentiated pop soup, meant to stream continuously into your ears from out of your alarm clock radio or portable record player. That's part of the appeal, though, the relentless drive towards a Platonic pop song, and its why one of the most appealing things about Georgie James is that they're wonderfully uninteresting.
