Adam Schmitt

Adam Schmitt has already had his dalliance with major labels and perhaps his 15 minutes of fame too. Back in the early ’90s, he was signed to Reprise Records, and his first two albums were heaped with an unhealthy amount of praise, but after being dropped by the label, he disappeared from view. He began to produce other acts, but all the time he was still recording his own material and stockpiling songs for when the time was right. In 1998 he began work on compiling songs for an album for Parasol, a process that took three years and went through several different title changes before the ten songs that comprise Demolition were finally completed. Was it worth the wait? Well, it is a solid power pop release that demonstrates from time to time just what all the fuss was all about in the past, but it is far from extraordinary. The songs here have a timeless quality, in that they could have been recorded any time in the past ten years (which, of course, they were) and so there are parts that do sound dated, but maybe that was the whole idea though. Fans of Matthew Sweet and Velvet Crush will enjoy Demolition, but fans of Schmitt’s earlier albums will most likely have moved on and forgotten all about him in the ten years that passed between releases. Maybe he could pick up the pace for album number four?