Bren Mead

At a certain point, you can stop putting a [sic] after some band names, assuming everyone now knows they’re just spelled that way, but I’m not sure Vetran has hit that point yet. The new band of Bren Mead (ex-Masters of the Hemisphere, among many other acts) is still at the furrowed brow stage where one thinks, “isn’t there another E in there?”

But the eliminated vowel, however unintentional its advent, suggests something about the simplicity and directness of Mead’s brand of pop music. Omit needless words, letters and dicking around and just move straight toward the pretty. That may be too much of an extension of Strunk & White’s famous rule, but it applies nonetheless to Vetran’s songs, which are beautiful, catchy and short. They’re not especially fast-paced, but they prove that kicky isn’t all that matters, and that a hook that moves in a lazier pattern will get you just as involved as one that requires dancing.

“The Follow Through,” for example, doesn’t waste time getting to the harmonies, the high end of the vocals and the bit that sinks right into your heart to resurface like a pop splinter that’s worked its way out a couple of days later. A song like “Half Drunk” will make you feel just like that in the best possible way. The only potential problem here is that these tunes work in a specific mood (summer, touch of melancholy) that might not function as well in a different season, and perhaps a little more breadth than depth might be striven for in tone.

On the other hand, it certainly is that season at the moment, and just as most of us have a type in the field of romantic interests, so too do we drift toward genres in music. Complaining about loveliness is unfair when there is sometimes so little of it. Now there is a little more - that is, until Mead moves to California in a week.