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Artist: The Dalloways

Album: Penalty Crusade

Publication: The Bakersfield Californian

Category: Review

Writer: Danielle Belton

Date: 01/06/2005

Section: Eye Street
Page: E7

Website: www.bakersfield.com

Gerhard Enns, frontman of The Dalloways, a Central Valley-based band, makes no bones about the sound he's going for on his band's first release, "Penalty Crusade."

He reaching for Brit pop and manages to find the sweet ether where California coolness ends and the emotional reverb of '80s British rockers begins.

The band is solid and plays sweet and jazzy over the title track "Penalty Crusade," a moody, melodic diatribe to personal malaise and old-fashioned American cynicism, a theme (along with love lost) that is ever present on the album even when that's not what the band is singing about.

Although Enns is from the USA, the heavy influence of British singers are evident in his own vocals. It takes a few listens to initially get accustomed to Enns' slightly nasal but impassioned delivery, but the album goes down multi-layered and smooth, recalling an age when "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" and you were in a Depeche Mode. But The Dalloways dial down the new wave bombastic and go right to the marrow.

Like Simply Red, but just being "simply."

Copyright, 2005, The Bakersfield Californian