Chicklet

Wanderlust (Satellite)
by Dave Liljengren

From the first glance at the cover of Wanderlust, it seemed obvious that the Toronto pop twosome Chicklet were hiding something. I initially thought they were simply teasing the audience with the striking good looks of lead singer/multi-instrumentalist, Julie Park, whose face and shapely legs are blurred on the disc’s outer paperwork. On first listen, however, the band’s dirty little secret burbled to the fore: They have an undeniable fondness for seventies Canuck folkie, Gordon Lightfoot. The verses to “Out of Sight,” a rockin’ ditty well attuned to Wanderlust‘s theme of travel, is a late-millenial homage to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Mr. Lightfoot’s ’70s chart-topping dirge for all who go down to the Great Lakes in ships. Beyond that, Chicklet may be the fizziest champagne cocktail currently served by the maple leaf pop underground.

The lovely Park is joined by Daniel Barida, a puckish, mullet-coiffed boy with a facility for keyboards. (Kids, can you say, “three-way?”) Their sound is a spicy pastiche of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space and the Spinanes. Their squeaky-clean, guitar-tinged songs of travel and youthful discovery inspire a nostalgia for simpler times when just getting out of the house was a big deal. Park’s clear vocals mesh with Barida’s bubblegum keys to generate an undeniably upbeat sonic dynamo. They’re young. They’re happy. They’re slightly out of sync with American preferences for angst-ridden popsters. Throw them a few grade A melodies and Chicklet could be the Abba of the new century.
(920 E. Colorado Blvd #151 Pasadena, CA 91106)