For his third album in the guise of a power-pop combo, multi-instrumentalist John Lathrop commingles longing melodies and oblique wit in a bid for three-minute transcendence. Contrasting the acoustic bent of his 2013 soundtrack for Billi & Theodore, this soundtrack for Lex Lybrand’s Maybe Shower channels the fleeting moment when bands like Fountains of Wayne garnered significant commercial airplay. Lathrop, however, bends more philosophical than Adam Schlesinger. Buried beneath the cool synth hook that enlivens the midtempo title track is a pocket treatise on the random nature of being. “Poly Sigh” explores the fraught dynamics of opening up a previously binary relationship with a mixture of melancholia and abandon. On the lighter side, “Maximum Zen” mocks and marvels at devil-may-care playboys that are “more Chachi than Fonz.” Lathrop wrote these songs to correspond to characters and events in the movie, but they’re catchy and relatable enough to stand alone.
This article appears in August 24 • 2018.
