Like This

iTunes Review

Chris Stamey left for a solo career, leaving The dB’s in the hands of singer-songwriter Peter Holsapple who had always showed a more straight-forward approach towards pop music with detours into soul, country and a general sense of roots-rock. Except that for 1984’s Like This, Holsapple and fellow compatriots, bassist Gene Holder, also playing guitar, and drummer Will Rigby, went straight for a modernized power-pop sound. The handclaps at the heart of the album’s opener, “Love Is For Lovers,” the extra dance step to the brilliant “A Spy In the House of Love,” the amiable “o-o-o-o-o” behind the snappy “She Got Soul” and the return of “Amplifier,” a song that appeared on 1982’s Repercussion and had a completed video ready for the airwaves, signaled a band poised to break into the mainstream. “Lonely Is (As Lonely Does)” and the b-side, now bonus track, “Darby Hall,” represent the band’s assured abilities with a ballad. Unfortunately, their record label folded soon after the album’s release and it exists, like the group’s entire catalog, as the work of cult superstars deserving of legendary status.