CD of The Week

The dude bros. of Philadelphia’s own (via Minneapolis) Free Energy are back with Love Sign, the follow-up to their excellent 2010 debut Stuck On Nothing. We first got a taste of the new record with the single “Electric Fever,” which came out early in 2012, and then “Dance All Night” later in the year. The new album is now out on the band’s own Free Energy Records after splitting ways with DFA.

On Love Sign, we get more of the Free Energy sound we came to love the first time around: big fun rock riffs, straightforward optimistic lyrics from frontman Paul Sprangers and a helping of cowbell. Their new single “Girls Want Rock” borrows from The Cars’ playbook, specifically the handclap-tastic “My Best Friend’s Girl.” The wistful “Dance All Night” belongs on the soundtrack to a teen rom-com, over the ending, guy-gets-the-girl scene (which is why the video for it is entirely made up of clips from Can’t Hardly Wait).

Mustachioed drummer Nick Shuminsky breaks out the cowbell on the rocker “Backscratcher,” while likable mid-tempo jams like “Hey Tonight” and Hold You Close” are highlights of the middle portion of the record. Elsewhere, “Hangin” is pretty much the Free Energy ethos encapsulated in one song.

Most artists currently looking back at the ‘80s are going for the big synth-pop sounds of the era, but Free Energy aim to cross Classic Rock riffage with the mid-80’s FM dominance of post-Rumours Fleetwood Mac. But Love Sign is more than the sum of its parts and certainly not merely a game of spot-the-influenece, going for an overall nostalgic retro vibe that few other bands are attempting at this time. If you dug what Free Energy brought to the party in the past, you should certainly check out Love Sign.