There are TWO "new" CDs that have just come by Paranoid Lovesick - Suburban Pop Allegro, the band`s long overdue never-released second album, will be released for the first time, accompanied by Tuxedo Avenue Breakdown, the band`s unreleased third album. Both are, simply, pretty darn essential for most power pop fans. Please check out both here on this site. "Tuxedo Avenue Breakdown" fills me with great, sincere joy to hear and hold. Head Lovesick Rick McBrien died suddenly in 2003 and the years before then, he and I emailed on a regular basis as he filled me in with where this record was at and how it was coming along. He shared some of these songs on then quite novel CD-R and was excited to hear that the tunes were strong and going to top the band`s previous fabulous efforts. It was a time for optimism for him and for fans indie power pop at this time. It did not come to pass. Until now. We get it all. 19 tracks, 6 of which I have sampled for to you chew on and which represent the many strengths of this album quite accurately. There`s some great pop luminaries that the band brought in to help the band and who took a lot of this material to another, new level - Lisa Mychols and Adam Marsland are names that will be familiar with Not Lamers but the familiar sounds of Teenage Fanclub and even The Shazam can be found all over this album. It`s an album that reached for excellence and is documented so well here. You decide. My ears are, arguably tainted here - I spoke to Rick a week before he died giving him my encouragement and geniune excitement over some of the tracks he had just sent to me. He was felled by a heart attack at 34, his first child on the way and wife left behind. It stunned me when I heard a few days later - I can only begin to fathom for his family and friends, at the time. I had never met him but he had gone back to the early days of Not Lame since 1995. He was one of the good ones. Now, "Tuxedo Avenue Breakdown" rises above that sadness and loss - life moves on, we live as long as we are given. Enjoy the little moments. Here are a whole lot of good ones. Very, very good ones. Bittersweet? Yeah, it must be but I can`t get past how happy hearing these tunes feels and that is all I can focus on. You will, too. Extremely Highly Recommended.
 Song #1 - mp3
Song #2 - mp3
Song #3 - mp3
Song #4 - mp3
Song #5 - mp3
Song #6 - mp3 | 
