Britain quartet
Sundara Karma
arrive with shimmering guitars and great expectations, delivering a lengthily titled pop treatise on youth in the modern age. Produced by
Larry Hibbitt
(
Hundred Reasons
,
Nothing But Thieves
),
Youth Is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect
introduces the Reading-bred newcomers' warmly anthemic sound and barely earned nostalgia. In frontman
Oscar Pollack
, the band have a charismatic, if somewhat familiar voice that can ably power these 12 tracks all the way back to the cheap seats, where they seem squarely aimed. Opener "A Young Understanding" sets the table in terms of dynamics with
Pollack
's robust vocals punctuating a soaring, circular guitar pattern that reaches for the rafters and hangs on. In both tone and color, there is much of the '80s rock-adoring earnestness in
's sound as they strive for mid-period
Springsteen
desperation while sometimes borrowing
Big Country
's knife-like guitar leads. By and large, though, this is 21st century rock written and played for a youthful (that word again) target audience of their peers that takes dynamic cues from first-wave millennial rockers like
Arcade Fire
and
the Killers
. High points like the opener, "Olympia," and the slowly building "Be Nobody" show a band with stadium-sized ambitions and a penchant for dramatic pop hooks. ~ Timothy Monger