REVIEW -- TINTED WINDOWS: TINTED WINDOWS

TINTED WINDOWS

Tinted Windows

(S-Curve)

This power-pop supergroup – made up of Hanson’s Taylor Hanson, Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha and Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos – sticks pretty close to the genre’s conventions. There are lots of extra-chewy hooks, super-sweet harmonies and songs about how good or bad their girls treat them. It’s all very 1976, with “woah-oh-woah-oh” choruses and fuzzy guitars leading the way. These vets definitely know their stuff (we still get a kick out of “MMMBop,” and nobody writes retro better than Schlesinger), but Tinted Windows too often sound like a rusty – but well-crafted -- time capsule. Only the simmering ballad “Dead Serious” has something new to say. --Michael Gallucci