A lot of bands aren't very good at hiding their influences, and the guitar-heavy gristle insulating Throneberry's sound reveals some pretty obvious reference points-- Neil Young with Crazy Horse would be as good a place to start as any. But I'd wager that this Cincinnati foursome is secretly enamored with 70's light-rock superstars like Bread and Three Dog Night as much as anything else. In between those thick-layered guitar walls, Throneberry toys with plenty of cheapo 70's sounds. But most of all, they can't resist fiddlin' around with their vintage electric pianos, and the sort of cheesy flange effects you'd find on album after album in the average Me Generation hippie's vinyl collection: recall, if you will, those stellar keyboards on "Joy to the World," or that priceless wah sound on Bread's "Guitar Man" and you've got the idea.

Throneberry have also been known to cover Tom Petty's "Here Comes My Girl," and Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere," so it's pretty obvious where their sentiments lie. Squinting Before the Dazzle revels in what one particular online alternazine so succinctly described as "boring old classic rock-sounding riffs."

Well, I'd venture to say there are actually a few not-so-boring old classic rock-sounding riffs here. And oddly enough, the best material comes in the form of poppy, slightly Weezer-tinged midtempo numbers penned by the "secondary" songwriter of the group. Vocalist/songwriter and lead guitarist Sam Womelsdorf's "Let's Hear It for Decay," "Stolen," and "See Me Off" have the most spunk by a long shot. We find the formerly sludgy rhythm guitar finally gaining some momentum. Womelsdorf's tunes don't have the same open-ended and rudderless feel as the others. His voice has that laid-back Lou Barlow Everyguy quality to it. And on top of all this, he's a decent lead guitarist, too-- well-versed in rough Young-ian noisemaking as well as the catchy clumsiness of players like Steve Malkmus. Too bad he's made to abide by that old George Harrison Sideman Songwriting Cap: only two or three tracks written by the shy, pensive lead guitarist can make the final cut. Unfortunately Womelsdorf's songs are, arguably, the best thing about the album.

Although Squinting Before the Dazzle doesn't reflect half the band's potential, it's still not a complete washout. Barring the exceptions noted previously, the songs just get sluggish, possibly succumbing to Arbenz's complacent influence. They fall back on chord progressions and melodies that sound too obvious and expected, eschewing any kind of imaginative structural dynamic to shake things up. Sometimes they'll try and compensate by letting the feedback swell up for a bit, or maybe they'll plink out a few clipped melodies on that antiquated garage sale electric piano they cherish so much.

Towards the end, though, everything just starts to float lazily off into nothing, until the album closes on an up note with the Womelsdorf-penned "See Me Off." So who knows? Maybe after two largely mediocre efforts from Throneberry, the third one'll be the charm. Or if we're lucky, maybe the third Throneberry album will actually be a Sam Womelsdorf solo album. Sam might want to get a new nickname or stage alias to further that solo career, though. Sammy "Red Rocker" Womelsdorf, maybe. Or there's always the highl marketable moniker of John Denver. I think it's up for grabs now, isn't it?

-Michael Sandlin