U.K. indie rocker Pete Astor has a voice like Robyn Hitchcock’s, placed high and front in the mix, and he puts it to similar use, gorblimeying his way through bouncy, strange little pop numbers. While Astor’s never as determinedly oddball as Hitchcock, you can hear him lacing the sweet with just enough acid throughout Spilt Milk to keep his smile cheeky. It’s his first album in half a decade, but Astor’s frames of musical reference are classic and established—blue-eyed soul, jangly R&B, coolly literate singer/songwriters like Hitchcock and Harry Nilsson—and Spilt Milk is a tight collection of songs that draws confidently from those sorts of formidable models.
Leadoff single “Mr. Music” is a winsome, tongue-in-cheek portrait of the rocker in his gray declivity, but “My Right Hand” and “Very Good Lock” are the finest, darkest, sweetest cuts on an album that’s rewarding—and pleasantly intelligent—from start to finish.
—Eric Waggoner
