Pitchfork

A peach is sort of like an orange, except it tastes good on Cheerios and if you're lazy you can eat the peel. In 1993, Blur recorded a B-side (later a U.S. bonus track) called "Peach", in which Damon Albarn murmurs, "Chemical eats/ Best part of the peach." A year later, as Allen Clapp & His Orchestra, Orange Peels bandleader Allen Clapp recorded a lo-fi pop song called "Why Sting Is Such an Idiot". But in 2005, on his third album with the Orange Peels, the Clapp-- as he's called by uncreative schoolchildren, drunken friends, and smarmy critics-- has long since traded his four-track for ProTools. His Peels lie, peeling, unappealingly, in the synthetic sun, studio chemicals devouring their best parts like the 90-lb. Kappa who always wins the burger-eating contest, their infinite MORdom and bafflingly childish lyrics occasionally out-idioting a guy too dumb just to pay Roxanne already and get down to tantric biznass.

OK, OK, anyone familiar with music HIStory (Jacko not guilty shocka! Jacko not pertinent double-shocka!) knows that what's really punk/indie/rawk is to defy the underground's inevitable strictures. The Minutemen covered Creedence, Hüsker Dü's bassist had a handlebar mustache, and Billy Corgan still won't shut up about how much he loves Black Sabbath. So I guess that makes Circling the Sun the indiest of indie-pop records, subverting the vague genre's idiosyncrasies with adult-contemporary production values. I say REO, you say Speedwagon!

Look, you haven't heard left-coast luminaries like the Beach Boys or the Byrds until you've heard their sounds recontextualized as hyper-Mellotronned Disney-ballad rejects. "Kokomo" was nothing. On "So Right"-- a re-recording of a stripped-down 2002 solo version-- the Clapper takes full advantage of his studio time to over-emote a dandyish vocal vibrato worthy of Dream Theater from 1997's soft-prog mostly-dud Fallling Into Infinity. Even the panning echo effects halfway through "I Don't Wanna Shine" (think fellow fruit band Lemon Pipers) sound too mall-ready to blow minds. The dude on Trio's mullet special who thinks Nirvana killed music? He likes this album. Do you own the Zombies' lethally schlocked 2004 reunion album? Your granddaughter probably gave you this for Father's Day.

Still, like fellow indie-pop disappointments Aberfeldy, the Orange Peels' worst sin is that they speak English. The latest in Clapp's panoply of weather songs broach the topic as banally as Water Cooler Guy did this afternoon (i.e., without Lucksmithian ingenuity). The rhymes remain a study in amateurishness: "Everyone was there/ There was something in the" ... air! "Everything seems wrong/ I put on the rain" ... song! "And listen to it every night/ Just to try to convince myself that it was all" ... right!

Despite the bright, gorgeous melodies underlying the record, only "What's It's Like (Mary Jo)" comes close to making up for the lacquered production and lyrical excruciation. With a shuffling beat, the song displays the album's least-overthought arrangement and simple lyrics that actually work, plus the record's best rhyme ("Doris Day"/"naivete"). Clapp-ing ensues. Then the indie pop sun retreats behind more digital clouds. Christ, Sting released "Fields of Gold" in 1993! Like peaches, Orange Peels are sometimes the pits.

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