Baby Teeth

Baby Teeth is often compared to 1970s pop saviors like Todd Rundgren, but as its new album The Simp (Lujo) proves, there’s more than a hint of Bobby Conn overstatement. Like Conn, Baby Teeth also happens to reference grandiose ’70s AM-radio music. Although there is a definite tongue-in-cheek element (or at least that’s the way it sounds), the trio manages to make the odd little twists work in its favor: “The Birds Are Crying” sounds like ELO trying to get funky (as on its hit “Evil Woman”); “Looking for a Road” comes across like the token country-rock number (only with a piano where the guitar should be); “Taste the Wine” is even brazen enough to openly steal from Fleetwood Mac’s “Monday Morning” (but we won’t tell if you won’t). No, not quite yacht-rock, but it should definitely appeal to anyone still mourning the death of Freddie Mercury—the music definitely recalls late Queen by fusing cock-rock guitars and disco-style drumming.

This local band originally formed in 2004, and has since released two full-lengths and two more EPs, the most recent of which is We Live Here, a self-released hometown tribute only available online. Consisting of all covers, the album has Baby Teeth’s unique stank all over songs by everyone from Liz Phair to the Impressions. It also explores the group’s campier side: The staccato vocal backgrounds on “Sarah” sound hijacked from a Maxwell album, and singer-keyboardist Abraham Levitan does a bizarre Curtis Mayfield impression on “Fool for You,” aping Mayfield’s original lead vocals. While these three put enough reasonable distance between themselves and the original versions, like a cockeyed picture on the wall it’s still skewed enough that you sense something is off. Then again, that’s part of the appeal.—James Porter