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There’s a girl sitting across from you in class, chewing on her eraser, chestnut hair draped across carved-soap cheekbones as she fidgets and squints at the math exam on her desk. Smartest kid in the class, and the cutest, but still sweet enough to glance up, catch you staring and flash a shy, brilliant smile.
Impossible not to love.
The Pernice Brothers’ fifth disc, Discover a Lovelier You, is just as irresistible. With Joe Pernice’s trademark wit and warmth, the disc rips up his alt-country pedigree as founder of the defunct Scud Mountain Boys and then pulls the teeth out of power pop, making it pucker up into a lush, almost mouthwatering melodiousness. Where its predecessor, Yours, Mine & Ours, damn near rocked, Discover lulls with skittish rhythms, pealing guitars and Pernice’s droll sigh, ripe with snow-blind kisses and other such tragicomically romantic tableaus. Contemporaries such as A.C. Newman and Stephen Merritt get all the cheers, but don’t let the Pernice Brothers’ casual perfection scare you; no matter how incandescent Discover gets, it’s still humble, human and winsomely disarming.
