*** Tim Keegan & the Homer Lounge

LONG DISTANCE INFORMATION

(Flydaddy)

If you've heard of Tim Keegan at all, its probably from his role on the last couple of Robyn Hitchcock albums. Keegan's been Hitchcock's guitar foil for a while now, and Robyn returns the favor by sitting in on this eight-song mini-album's last track, "Postcard from a Friend." The real attraction isn't guest stars but the singing and songwriting of the Homer Lounge's main man. Keegan has a pleasantly unassuming, perfectly English voice, timbrally somewhere between Hitchcock and Ian McCulloch but without the latter's overt portentousness. The songs he writes are equally low-key, jangly folk-rock with instantly winning melodies that sometimes mask the lyrics' subtle sense of humor. Even when Keegan gets big and loud, his overall message never has less than two edges. "[We've] Got Everything We Need," which could easily have gone the Oasis rock-anthem route, instead hooks a grunge guitar chorus to lines such as "I found someone who cares about me more than I do," while the album's deepest melodic surge is saved for a track called "Save Me From Happiness."

-- Mac Randall