We Found a Lovebird
Deluxe Hotel

“I pressed the button, so I get the credit,” sings Larry Lechner on “Never Would Have Guessed”, the track that opens We Found a Lovebird’s latest long-player, Deluxe Hotel. While it’s not entirely clear that this is what Lechner’s referring to, the singer-guitarist is, in fact, credited with pressing all the buttons (and sliding all the faders) on the album, which was recorded at his own studio, Church of Larry.

You’d have to be something of a Vancouver-music-scene trainspotter (I’m looking at you, Allan MacInnis) to figure out that the song’s title is a reference to Never Would Have Guessed We Were All Blessed, a 2006 release by Conrad—a band that was also fronted by Lechner. The guy has been around long enough to have honed a well-defined sound. Specifically, that sound is a classic, six-string-driven indie-rock attack. Lechner and his bandmates—guitarist Kerry MacPherson, bassist-vocalist David Charan, and drummer Allan Collins—clearly don’t believe in sanding down the rough edges, either. If the vocals on “Loose Lips” aren’t always on key, for example, that’s more than made up for by the tune’s CBGB-circa-’77 energy.

That’s another way of saying that it kinda sounds like Television. Which I suppose makes the awesomely epic 10-minute-long “They Came From the Caves” We Found a Lovebird’s “Marquee Moon”, with a side trip in the direction of Connie Francis—although, again, you would probably have to be some sort of pop-culture obsessive to pick up on that last bit.

I have a feeling, though, that Lechner and company would have no complaints about having their band’s output described as music for trainspotters.