Maroons - You're Gonna Ruin Everything
(In Music We Trust)
A nice, pleasant, unassuming guitar-based pop band. There aren't enough of these around. If you see any stickers or press mentioning the group's connections to folks like Elliott Smith or Stephen Malkmus or Rebecca Gates, please ignore. If you're going to drop a name, it's going to be Death Cab for Cutie (with less of a death wish) or the New Pornographers (with a fetish for pin-up girls and happy-go-lucky cheesecake photos, instead of hardcore gynecology). I'd also like to mention both Game Theory and the Loud Family, but only because singer John Moen's voice often hits a flawed falsetto that reminds me of Scott Miller's mighty yawp. Of course, most of the folks mentioned have carved out their niche (with various degrees of musical derivation).
This Maroons album (their first) doesn't have much to distinguish itself from other groups of their ilk.
That is, except for the quality of the songs (which is quite high), and the lack of Maroons-like groups. The Maroons are good at what they do. Often, that's all you can ask for. Right now, that's more than enough.
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