GLEASONS DRIFT

Blythe Township Mellencamp

gleasonsdrift.com

Power-pop isn’t solely the purview of city slickers in skinny ties. The members of Gleasons Drift are more beard-and-flannel types, so it’s fitting that on their third album they deliver big riffs and bigger melodies with a backwoods twang befitting their native Pottsville, Pa. At their catchiest the songs recall ’70s-era NRBQ. When frontman Bill Whalen really gets going, singing about marital upheavals or excessive drinking with folksy humor and hints of sadness, he proves as potent a songwriter as the similarly oriented Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers. This hayride of an album is an easy sell: Come for the hooks, stay for the jokes, savor the stories.