Dolour

Suburbiac (Fugitive)
by Tim Den

If Jason Falkner was a 20-year-old kid obsessed with ’60s pop, but couldn’t resist playing into the whole emo aesthetics (The All-American Rejects), he’d be Dolour (aka Shane Tutmarc). The kid’s obviously done his homework: He crams harmonies and horns and piano jabs and strings compactly into soul-lifting hooks, and radio hits spew out of him like vomit out of a drunk (naturally, flowingly, etc.). The only downside of it is that – like most boys his age – the lyrics are bullshit boy/girl melodrama. If he realizes that there’s a whole world out there to sing about, we might not be able to resist him.
(PO Box 99556 Seattle, WA 98199)