Search - Even Elroy :: Nothing's Really Changed

Piano rock has slowly been on the rise in the past few years with the popularity of Coldplay, Keane, and the like, but few bands have managed to combine the sound of pounding ivory with sophisticated guitar in the way this San Francisco based quartet makes sound so effortless.

In their newest release, Even Elroy delivers an album full of upbeat rock with a healthy dose of electric guitar, towering piano, and harmonic traces of Ben Folds, Radiohead, and The Beatles sprinkled throughout. And while ?happy songs, sad lyrics? isn?t quite a musical genre, it does help to define the intelligent, wry, lyrical sense of a band who refuses to record sappy love songs. Instead, stories of a carnival worker going through a midlife crisis or the yearning desire to meet Tommy Lee Jones are expertly woven around catchy, radio-friendly pop melodies, reminiscent of early Billy Joel classics.

Produced by Jerry Becker, whose credits include Rob Hotchkiss (Train) among others, NOTHING?S REALLY CHANGED is both a debut record from the band, and a second studio album from Michaels, whose previous recording Red Jacket provided the basis for the group?s formation in 2003. Technically, it?s a clever way of avoiding the dreaded sophomore jinx, although upon listening you?ll realize that should never have been a worry for this band.