The trouble with loving a band like Dealership is that it turns you into a giddy teenager, if you aren’t one already. The plaintive vocals, fuzz-happy guitar, burbling bass, super-steady traps, and tinkling new wave keyboards conspire to garner this Berkeley three-piece enthusiastic but completely inadequate accolades such as “OMG, so cute!!!”
That’s a shame, because the band’s infectious indie-pop has never sounded quite so tight and polished as on this third album. Yes, the songs are sweet, chewy, and bite-size like bonbons, but there’s a lot more to this than just a pretty hook. Witness the way guitarist and keyboardist Miyuki Jane Pinckard’s breathy chorus on “Endless Affair” (or bassist Chris Groves’ wail on the especially dreamy “Then”) is almost, but not quite, subsumed by a tidal wave of fuzz. Notice, too, that once you actually listen to what they’re crooning so delicately, the lyrics are deceptively involved. As I travel back in time, do you remember when I tried, evidently not too hard, to be your friend? Pinckard murmurs on the sleepy weeper “Boy You Were.” The short and bouncy confection “All the Kids” is the catchiest thing since cholera, building from a tripping little keyboard riff into an irresistibly anthemic pop-punkish frenzy. And ultimately, Action/Adventure would be well worth picking up for the seductively twee cover of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK” alone.
