Local Motion

Week of January 26, 2006

Jan 25, 2006 at 4:00 am

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Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. The cheerful, rainbow-striped packaging on One Lone Car's Variety Half Hour EP serves to mask seven jaunty tunes that brighten up even the dreariest winter day. Together only since summer 2004, the Alton-based quartet manages to mash together varied influences — mod-pop, Triple-A radio earnestness, jangly indie rock — into non-derivative and catchy-as-chicken-pox tunes. The caffeinated "12:03" resembles early Sloan, with its power-pop aspirations and dirty clouds of grungy guitars, while a loping, twangy "Coming Home for Dinner" is the sort of bittersweet love song Guster might have written. One Lone Car is currently unsigned — but perhaps not for long.