Here Come Those Dreams Again (Eagle Eye, 2005)

It's been eight years since Big Blue Hearts' sparkling roots pop debut, which resulted in a boatload of great press that couldn't save the band from Geffen's axe of label reorganization. Frontman David Fisher continued to produce and write with collaborator Douglas Soref, a partnership that has finally yielded BBH's sophomore album. Fisher has installed a new band to back him up, but the touchstones that people sparked to in 1997 are all still fairly relevant today.

Fisher still mines a twangy roots vein that hearkens to pop dramatists like Roy Orbison and Chris Isaak or Dwight Yoakam if he'd been obsessed with the Everly Brothers instead of Buck Owens. More importantly, Fisher (and his occasional co-writer Soref) still has an impeccable ear for crystalline country pop songs (particularly the stratospheric lead off cut, "Lovin' You," the bluesy "Dreamin' of a Woman" and the pop-twanged title track) and presents them with an equal sense of technical proficiency and organic slack. Here's hoping Big Blue Hearts manages a little better luck this go-round. (Big Blue Hearts)