Fours star review for the new album "Wake Up Captain" by Kevin Tihista's Red Terror, on Parasol Reords...

MOJO MAGAZINE - FOUR STARS

Soaring chamber pop and lyrical drollery from Chicago-based thirtysomething.

Kevin Tihista's is a bittersweet calling. He sounds like the late Elliott Smith might have if he'd been weaned on ELO instead of The Beatles - a wry, dreamy-voiced soul let loose in a deluxe soft rock playpen. This, Tihista's third solo album since quitting life as a jobbing indie sideman, is a very '70s-sounding affair - its 17 lavishly orchestrated blooms framing gnomic lyrical insights on love (This Is An Offering), drugs (Yummy) and falling off rooftops (Good Wings). It could have been a grand folly, but Tihista carefully avoids pastiche while producer Ellis Clark tosses in the odd buzzing keyboard or hip-hop loop, staving off complete retro indulgence. Indeed, the pleading, horn-laden Ride could be Radiohead, albeit accompanied by the Tijuana Brass. As the luminous, Beach Boys-like Godsend has it, "The future is right behind us, spinning the wheels of progress". (Dave Sheppard)