The Abracadabras' debut begins inauspiciously, with two party-rocking tracks that seem like soundtrack auditions for the lost direct-to-video Wayne's World 3: Garth Rides Alone. But once this Kansas City band stops hurling cheese and gets down to real songs, what follows is excellent. The nasal bleat of frontman John Nixon gives laddish swagger to the doo-woppy "Are We Going Down?" and seductive suffering to the ballad "Give Me Your Name." A singer such as Nixon hasn't come around these parts in a while — holding naught but the mic, he issues line after line in a confident, vibrato-free yowl. On "Argument," he comes as close to the Hives' Howlin' Pelle Almqvist as can reasonably be expected of an ordinary human. Then, on the country howler "Callie Ann," Nixon proves that he is no ordinary human at all but a true scion of Jagger. Instrumentally, the band conjures a distinctly British style: Beatles in the drums, Queen in the arrangements and Yardbirds in the garden. Oasis should take the Abracads on tour. But the band probably needs to log some miles of its own first. This town doesn't need any more hang-about heroes.
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