Review in Italian online magazine, Roots Highway

As posted on rootshighway.it

A tasty pop candy, indeed, this She’s about to Cross My Mind and, for once, our judgment should stay away from any modern logic and only focus on the irresistible quality of these eleven songs, a flood of waving melodies of the sixties and bright pop music as we had not listen to for a very long time. Our critical sense also imposes that we evaluate the music of the Red Buttons for what it really represents, a wave of fresh revival, a complacent remembrance of the great days of the British invasion and of a power pop often revisited in the course of the last decades. The band is shaped around the personalities of Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg, “cunning devils” of the music business with a very respectful curriculum. The first one has been a third party author, has written for Al Green, Tina Turner, Rufus Wainwright and has “published” a highly respected piece of work as a soloist (Instant Pleasure); the second has led the Rex Daisy (a record produced by Paul Fox of the XTC for Geffen), he has done the tough job of the session man and also collaborated on the sound track of the Dummy with Adrian Brody. They have combined their talent and effort to make She’s about to cross my mind, which is their way to look at the colors of the world through a kaleidoscope made of Beatles like melodies, Byrds like jingle jangle, garage rock and bubblegum music. They hit the target, no doubt about it, and many have fallen in love with them, Norman Smith (sound engineer of the Beatles and talent scout of Emi in the sixties) and Little Steven among others. The last one has elected Cruel Girl the “coolest song in the world” in his infamous radio show dedicated to today and yesterday’s garage. The song fits it perfectly, with that organ and vocal mix which seemed just out of Help! in 1965, or somewhere around that time. The rest of the album, which is almost entirely played by the duo with rare studio collaborations, stays on message. This is high level pop craftsmanship, granted that we do no take them too seriously and we let their melodies carry us without complains and pre-conceptions. In this case originality doesn’t count. What matters is the “going back”, the eco of long gone memories, the familiarity of songs like Floating By and Oh Girl, or delicious nursery rhymes, I could get used to you, Can’t Stop Thinking About Her and Free, a conspiracy of sparkling Byrds like guitars, and also Gonna Make you Mine, another eternal ode to the couple Lennon-McCartney, all done in a rush (only 33 minutes, as the genre requires) till the end, with It’s No secret, talking about girls and love with such an ingenuity that it can only cause one reaction: love. Maybe it is short-lived but, it is unconditional.