Music

‘I love Broadway and I love Black Sabbath,’ said Orson frontman Jason Pebworth recently. Listening to the LA quintet’s debut, it’s clear the ex-theatre performer’s songs are more in debt to the chirpy showtunes of that former influence than the rough-hewn metal of the latter. In fact, Orson are one of those odd American rock bands (see also Matchbox 20 and Maroon 5) who don’t actually rock at all – their sound is far too bright, breezy and downright clean for all that.

What Orson do have – in rare abundance – is tunes. Borrowing heavily from ’70s FM staples (from Queen to ELO) and embellishing them with something of the Scissor Sisters’ glitterball stomp, ‘Bright Idea’ barrels its way through 43 minutes of solid pop hooks and simplistic happy/sad sentiments. Many of these songs will take residence on your radio and follow recent Number One hit ‘No Tomorrow’ up the charts. Gregg Alexander’s New Radicals are obvious cousins, but ‘Bright Idea’ is most likely to find itself sitting next to Robbie Williams albums on our nation’s CD shelves (in the mawkish, piano-ballad ‘Look Around’, it even has its own ‘Angels’ ). If you’re looking for depth, imagination and art, you’d do well to avoid this. But if you’re all about sunshine, big choruses, and surface-level emotion, you won’t go far wrong.