Consumer Guide Album

The dB's: Like This [Bearsville, 1984]
This is a different, less ambitious band without Chris Stamey, whose taste for the uncanny is missed when the lyrics wind down into the enigmatic (nice word for vague, unrealized, etc.) stuff on side two. But Chris Butler's eight-cylinder production suits the straightforward thrust of Peter Holsapple's young-adult love songs, and melodies have never been their problem. A piece of Inspirational Verse, then: "I can understand / Why you want a better man / But why do you wanna make him out of me?" And one request: How about a whole album that kicks like "A Spy in the House of Love"? A-