My buddy Andy turned me on to the Red Walls, he's an avid fan of Brit indie pop and though these youngsters hail from the states, there is no band that falls under that category quite as snugly as The Red Walls. As Andy handed me the disc he told me that the Walls used to be a Beatles tribute band (though nowhere in my internet research did this info turn up, in fact on their own website the Beatles are down the list a ways on their self-proclaimed influences.) But this doesn't change the reality that De Nova sounds like a compilation of lost Beatle songs that managed to fall between the cracks from every era of their career. They lean more toward the Lennonesque, but there are shades of George, more particularly Traveling Wilburys.

As far as bands that sound like the Beatles go, The Red Walls resemble Fastball and ELO/Jeff Lynne more closely than say Oasis. To some degree these bands wished to down play their Beatlistic tendancies, whereas it really sounds like the Red Walls purposely sound as close as they want and don't really care. Then again, by reading the bio on their website you certainly wouldn't expect this album to sound like the Beatles any more than the general influence they have on 95 per cent of every other band in the world. Not all of the tracks on De Nova are pure Beatlemania, there are a few that smack of David Bowie and a few with a more rootsy flavor akin to the Jayhawks.

The songwriting stands well enough on it's own, but don't expect to find anything particularly remarkable in the lyrical department. The band is headed by two brothers Logan and Justin Baren, whose fraternal similarity lends a nice bit of magic to the harmonies. Frankly I found the whole Red Walls thing a good bit more interesting when I was listening to them under the notion (however inaccurate) that they used to be a Tribute band. Being disabused of that notion gives me more of a "take it or leave it impression. I really have no idea why.