From the Philadelphia Inquirer...
Terry Anderson
and the OAK Team
National Champions
(Doublenought ***1/2)
Terry Anderson plays with Dan Baird and Eric Ambel in the roots-rock supergroup the Yayhoos. But over the last few years with his own first-rate band, the Olympic Ass-Kickin' Team, the singing and songwriting drummer has been doing the best work of his unsung career. With National Champions, the North Carolinian and his team raise their level of studio craft while delivering another hook-happy blast of fun rock and sweet pop.
Anderson presents more ingenious variations on his usual touchstones - Chuck Berry, Rockpile, NRBQ foremost among them. Within that framework, however, are some new turns: "Pow'ful 'Merka" offers pointed commentary about ask-no-questions patriotism, and "Willie Mays" is less a salute to the Say Hey Kid than a slicing and dicing of his godson, Barry Bonds. The hoot-and-a-half "You Had Me at Get Lost" pushes up to and probably past the boundaries of PC ("That restraining order really got me hot"), while "Wrong for That" is a dead-on bedroom-soul parody, complete with recitation, that finds Anderson breaking into a falsetto. It's just one of the many high points, so to speak, on this championship effort.- Nick Cristiano
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