The Little Heroes, Cinematic Americana

With Cinematic Americana, California’s Little Heroes prove amply that you don’t need to be flashy or over-the-top to pen (and play) incredible, thoughtful, often heartbreaking music. The band isn’t out to wow you by being the smartest or funniest, no, but are rather out to win your heart by being gentle and sensitive — they’re like the musical equivalent of the teenage kid who’s absolutely certain that his/her One True Love would eventually pay attention if they could only hear the songs that’re pouring out of them. (The difference being, in this case, that the Little Heroes are actually really good songwriters.)

In the process, the band bridges the gap between late-’90s emo-pop as exemplified by Clarity-era Jimmy Eat World (think that band’s more understated, melancholy stuff) and that whole crop of bands from slightly earlier in the decade who worshiped both R.E.M. and the Replacements in equal measure — Buffalo Tom, Gin Blossoms, Soul Asylum, the less-crappy side of the Goo Goo Dolls, maybe even the Connells, etc. There’s plenty of sweet, delicate jangle-rock here, both quiet and countrified on “Come On” or high-flying opener “Flight Plans for Airplanes” and anthemic on fast, driving “Teeth” and the gloriously roaring burner “New End Game.” The vocal melodies and structures, though, are Jimmy Eat World all the way, and there’s a bitter jolt of punkish adrenaline running through the proceedings, to boot, so Cinematic Americana never gets bogged down in “Runaway Train”-land.

Admittedly, some of the songs on here are so subtle they might slip right by without you noticing, but they’re packed so full of pretty melodies and love-just-out-of-reach lyrics that they creep in subliminally, even still. I just spent a half-hour Googling the lyrics to a song that have been running through my head all week, only to realize that they’re from the chorus of “Thank You,” off the album I’d just finished listening to. Funny — I could’ve sworn I’d known ’em forever.