Meet the Smithereens!

AMG Review of Meet the Smithereens!

Jack Rabid
All Music Guide

Normally the only thing worse than a tribute album is a tribute to an album. And no one—no one—can improve on a Beatles LP. But this veteran New Jersey trio amazingly pull off this cockamamie idea. The group are clearly worshipping disciples (as we all should be) of the Liverpool legends’ blockbuster breakthrough, Meet the Beatles, Capitol’s January 20, 1964, U.S. version of EMI U.K.’s With the Beatles (with two singles added and five of its six covers subtracted—all five of them later rushed out as part of Capitol’s subsequent Beatlemania cash-in Second Album). But rather than insipidly recreate a wild rock ’n’ roll masterpiece or irreverently recast it as something it isn’t, they crash into a perfect middle ground: They reframe it as if it were recorded by The Raspberries, Big Star, Todd Rundgren, Flamin’ Groovies, or myriad other meaty, American power-popsters who updated a thorough Beatles blueprint in the 1970s. George Harrison’s “Don’t Bother Me” and John Lennon’s underappreciated classic “Not a Second Time” sound particularly fresh and poignant in this context. And much as he did when he sang The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” a while back, Pat Dinizio is too smart to oversell the vocals or get carried away by their iconic ubiquity. And his guitars twist the chords into a stinging sharpness. Totally enjoyable and genuinely worthwhile!