Sunny Side Up

Most hit bands in the early 1960s began their careers with poppy, easily digestible albums that made listeners bob their heads from side to side. The experimental tunes came later—and it’s a good thing; teenaged girls probably wouldn’t have responded quite as well on the “The Ed Sullivan Show” if the Beatles had played something like “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” instead of “She Loves You.” 

Mojave 3, a quartet from Cornwall, England, works like a ’60s band in reverse. The group formed in 1994 from the remnants of Slowdive, a band known for its distorted shoegazer soundscapes. During a four-album run, as Mojave 3, the original trio of Rachel Goswell (bass), Neil Halstead (guitar and vocals) and Ian McCutcheon (drums) dropped the guitar fuzz in favor of somber country tones that picked up fans—and keyboardist, Alan Forrester. But on its fifth album, Puzzles Like You, Mojave 3 switches its gears from cloudy day tracks to the full-on sunshine of the ’60s.

“Truck Driving Man” sets the scene as the album’s opener with a rollicking guitar riff, no-frills bass, lightly pattering drums and a brightly repeated piano chord. The track gets British Invasion-y when it breaks for a brief segment of “La, la, la, la” before returning to finish the tale of “Johnny,” the song’s protagonist. The title track, “Puzzles Like You,” continues the album’s innocent vibe, and, with lyrics like “It’s been a hard day for the homecoming queen,” it gets about as sweet as a Monkees tune.

But Halstead is no Davy Jones—even if they do both enjoy the odd reference to homecoming queens. He and Mojave 3 align closer with Belle and Sebastian, and the comparison comes not just because both groups wrote songs about girls named “Judy.” Mojave 3 has come to share in Belle and Sebastian’s style of bright sounds matched with dark-ish lyrics. On “Most Days,” Halstead sings “She says she was born a traveler,” which could fit the ’60s mold—if it were followed by a lyric about the girl “traveling” into the arms of her fella. Instead, the song takes an unexpected turn when Halstead sings, “And I said I knew as she ran out the door.”

The somber undercurrent should keep fans of Mojave 3’s past works happy. While the sunnier sound is no detractor: It might not make the teenagers scream like it used to, but the band’s bright pop can still get the heads bobbing.   

Oct. 20 & 21. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 8, $20.