Stew
Guest Host
The Telegraph Company

The smooth, sparkling, soulful Guest Host is a solo venture for Stew, who usually fronts the ironically named, fondly admired L.A. power pop band The Negro Problem. This pop-lover's gem is chock-full o' strong bass lines, Beach Boy-esque harmonies and Stew's smooth bellowing and passionate vocals. Heidi Rodewald's melodic bass playing is fantastic, and she adds back-up vocals to which any pop princess would bow. Whimsical and insightful lyrics ring loud and clear on the front of every song.

When you listen to Guest Host, you feel like you're sitting in your living room with your odd, brilliant Uncle Stew telling you animated tales of old friends and past loves. You can't help but listen attentively like a wide-eyed 10-year-old.

Picture if you can your auntie in a café,
sipping up spirits, leering this and that way,
through cigarette haze hanging in a mirror,
rub swollen eyes ‘til the image gets clearer
to you … Bijou.
Picture your Granny all drunk with pearls,
chipped nail polish, going home with girls,
what's good on the loose is bad for Ann Landers,
sexual partners or innocent bystanders …

Instrumentation that flies beyond your standard pop-rock album highlights many simple songs on Guest Host. Oboes, flutes and violins flutter over acoustic guitar, the foundation of most songs on this CD. Guest Host's beauty is the simplicity of the songs that trickle with quite complicated, unusual tidbits of instrumentation, harmonies and arrangements.

Guest Host is an emotional ping-pong game that sends you back and forth between joy and pity, but the songs never take themselves too seriously. The first track, "Cavity," gives you a full dose of Stew's voice in all its heartfelt glory. A haunting back-up vocal adds an excellent contrast to this heartache. "Essence" is a dreamy pop tune that swirls with '60s pop innocence. With "Rehab," you won't know whether to laugh or cry. It's a charmingly moral tale of an optimistic junkie, sung like a child's storybook — complete with children innocently singing the chorus.

The album closes with a feel-good number to leave you giddy with pop pleasure. "C'mon Everybody" will get heads bopping from side to side as any great, three-minute pop song should. This closing number offers a perfectly carefree way to depart from Stew's mind, considering most of the songs on this album have either a tongue-in-cheek social statement or offer a sentimentally sad ride full of imagery.

Overall, Guest Host is a terrifically self-assured debut singer/songwriter album that might leave you pondering the cosmic possibility that Stew has found a way to concurrently channel the seemingly dissimilar musical spirits of James Taylor and Al Green, with the occasional comedy of a carnival performer.

— Tina Krinhop (oootinaooo at yahoo dot com)