Happy Birthday – S/T (2010) [Sub Pop] // Grade: B

I think I’ve probably said it before on here, but I love pop punk. It’s one of the few genres you can get a lot out of, just by taking it at face value. After seeing Kyle Thomas’ (Feathers, King Tuff, Witch) new band play a show, on video no less,  Sub Pop quickly signed them to their roster, despite Thomas & Co. having no recorded material as a band. The resulting album is the self-titled Happy Birthday, a good-natured, jubilant power pop record full of shimmering tunes.

Thomas has the perfect nasal, teenage inflection to his voice and throughout Happy Birthday, Ruth Garbus offers swooning backup vocals, making for a great pairing. It’s hard to hate on any album that kicks off with a gem like “Girls FM”, all pop, reverb and sunshine. The album doesn’t go much down from there, mixing elements of power pop from across the past few decades. “Perverted Girl” and “Pink Strawberry Shake” both respectively dip into a nod to the late ’70s.

There’s tons of great juxtapositions happening all over Happy Birthday, but the side-by-side pairing of the Thomas’ sneering punk notes on “Zit” and impressively calm and introspective album closer “Fun” illustrate that Thomas is a guy who knows just how all-encompassing power pop can be, and happily rides the spectrum from one end to the other across Happy Birthday.

- Scrooge McFuck