Stuck In Your Head

 By Henry Lipput

On his new album, Earworms (Big Stir Records) Nick Frater has come up with tunes that stick in your head and stay with you for the rest of the day -- and sometimes, if you're lucky, even longer. Frater is a UK-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who specializes in evoking the sounds of ‘60s and ‘70s pop. 

Back here in the U.S. we had AM radio in the ‘70s that played music by bands like Rasperries, Wings, early Daryl Hall/John Oates (I‘m thinking of 1973’s Abandoned Luncheonette), and piano men Elton John and Billy Joel. And although Big Star and Emitt Rhodes weren’t being played on the radio at the time they have become over the years a very big part of our musical DNA -- and Frater is certainly aware of this.

Recordng at his home in Croydon, and prevented by lockdowns from calling on his regular band and studios, Frater instead pulled together an impressive group of home recordists spread across the UK and U.S. including Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish/Beck), Darian Sahanaja (Wondermints/Brian Wilson), Mike Randle (Love/Baby Lemonade), Dana Countryman, drummer-in-a-closet Nick Bertling, and many others. 

The first track on the album, “It’s All Rumours,” is a rave-up that recalls the guitars and lead vocal of Eric Carmen and company. “Buggin’ Out” is a pop treat as well as a mashup of decades with it’s references to ‘50s doo wop backing vocals and  Abbey Road-era George Harrison guitar. 

“What’s With Your Heavy Heart” is both a musical and lyrical tribute to Emitt Rhodes. The line “What’s with your heavy heart?/Love is just another to fall apart/On a second chance/Falling with my face on the floor” makes it hard not to think of the Rhodes track “Face On The Floor” from his 1970 self-titled album.

“Lucky Strike” begins with a Supertramp vamp and although Frater’s fellow pop traveler, the late, great Owsley, wasn't around in the 70s, his influence can be heard on the melody lines of this song as well as Earworm’s “Not Born Again.”

The lovely “Star-Crossed” is the song McCartney never wrote for his albums Red Rose Speedway or Venus And Mars. And the short, sweet “How To Survive Somebody” is another Raspberries callback that starts quietly with its choral-like backing vocals and builds to a musical crescendo.

Frater has said he wanted to “make an album that sounds and feels like a lost treasure from the mid '70s melodic rock scene,” and he delivers the goods. In addition, the amazing album cover by Adam Mallett, an homage to the great Klaus Voormann cover for Revolver, is just icing on the cake.