Review: A Soup Named Stew Number Two

It’s difficult to do lighthearted, funny music with conviction. Rock music already has a cartoonish pretense about it, so trying to be funny brings the artist perilously close to the edge of self-parody. That edge is precisely the one A Soup Named Stew’s David Loti likes. On “Zamboni,” after unabashedly rhyming it with macaroni and trombone-y, he asks in deadpan, “Is this stupid song over yet?” —and then, it is. The humor is so flat it works.

The best songs on the record are the morose ‘So Happy” and the bouncy “So Sad,” live tracks that center the record. They offer up the heart that beats behind the jokes. asoupnamedstew.com

Essential Tracks: “So Happy,” “She Wants Me”?Recommended if you like: Barenaked Ladies, They Might be Giants more than you want to admit