THAT'S THAT/Cass McCombs

I credit my friend E. J. Van Lanen with turning me on to Cass McCombs, whose music not too many people seem to know, a shame considering the way it just keeps getting better and better. My affection for Mr. McCombs and his unique brand of indie-rock -- sometimes near-ambient, sometimes folk-inflected, and sometimes, as here, just good old-fashioned pop, complete with what sound suspiciously like doo-wops -- doesn't suffer from the fact that my wife and I had our first date at a concert of his in Brooklyn back in 2005 in support of the excellent record "Prefection." (I won the tickets online from Other Music in Manhattan!)

Anyway, just for fun, compare "That's That," the first single from "Dropping the Writ," (released late 2007) with "Dragging the Line" by Tommy James and the Shondells. There are certainly worse time signatures to ape. . . .

http://stereogum.com/mp3/Cass%20McCombs%20-%20That's%20That.mp3