College Rock II 12″

Tracked largely in the songwriter’s house in Columbia, South Carolina, College Rock II is presented with the perfect amount of fidelity: hi-fi enough to let Busbee’s bright, explicit melodies and enigmatic lyrics shine, but lo-fi enough to reveal its keenest secrets only on close listens. The ten tracks — each brief but unpredictably fitful — are imbued with a natural charisma that’s built largely on inscrutability, but also on Busbee’s mercurial, singular singing style, which jumps from deep country-western baritone rambles to spastic falsetto chirps with ease. His sharp, loungy affectations are emboldened by a chameleonic sensibility that’s doubtless derived from Busbee’s long standing relationship with dramatic theatre.

Befitting of an oddball rocker with a penchant for sonic puzzles, College Rock II is chock-a-block with genre exercises, jumping between styles like a college-radio playlist. The demento R&B slow jam “Forever” follows the winking early-rock-via-synth-pop crooner “Everybody’s Rock ‘N’ Roll.” The runty, Rundgren-ish AM rock of “Girl” offsets the gaudy, Rhodes-flecked country of “Clio.” The unsanded edges of the garagey “Chaos Convention” abut the refined, disco-informed “Looking American.”

Where its eclecticism might fall apart under less steady hands, College Rock II revels in its idiosyncrasies. Busbee himself arrives at an odd-angle intersection of smirking irony and blistering honesty, with gleeful subversion ever bubbling beneath the surface. His lyrics, twisty enigmas that fall between sarcasm and sincerity, ring with wry, deadpan humor. “Lost in a heartache’s desire,” he croons on “Chaos Convention,” “why are all the white ones insane, I’m saying.” Half tongue-in-cheek, half tender and sincere, Busbee succeeds by way of constant confusion.

Whatever College Rock II is, it’s too wily, too adroit, too brimming with confidence to be restricted to one ill-defined category.

“... bursting at the seams with unpredictable yet concise pop tunes filled with bubbly melodies and filtered through hyperactive synthesizers and unruly guitars.” -Free Times

“‘Forever’ is my favorite type of pop song, taking that sulky lo-fi sound and adding a sort of Southern soulfulness to the formula.” -FADER

“Kicking off with a gristly trail of static that contributes to the track's endearing imbalance, ‘Forever’ is dismantled lounge pop.” -Chart Attack