Let Go
Let Go (2005, Militia Group)

I was sorely dismayed when I learned that Jamie Woolford was dissolving The Stereo, the Minneapolis revolving-lineup he commandeered for five years that went out on a glorifying high note with 2002’s Rewind + Record, perhaps the smartest and most sumptuous power-pop album of the decade thus far. Woolford had intended on recording his first solo album in 2004, but after migrating to Tempe, Arizona, he was stricken by the band bug sooner than expected. Let Go doesn’t stray too far from the proverbial tree, and frequently sounds like one and the same, particularly referencing the Stereo’s 1999 debut, Three Hundred. That being said Let Go doesn’t quite resume where Woolford’s budding singer-songwriter developments left off on Rewind + Record. Instead, Let Go get straight to brass tacks, operating within the same parameters that Weezer and Motion City Soundtrack typically inhabit. Succinct, powerful, incessantly melodic, and most of all instantly gratifyingly, Let Go offers nary a dissatisfying moment, just jubilant power-chord bliss.

-Neal Agneta 9/21/05