Beautiful World

By: Big Head Todd and the Monsters

Type: Rock

Hot Tracks:

• Resignation Superman
• Helpless
• Please Don’t Tell Her
• Beautiful World
• Boom Boom

Todd Park Mohr teams up with producer Jerry Harrison to create a good, solid album inBeautiful World. Mohr has just begun to show his talents in songwriting and guitar, despite having been in the business for years. The commercial success the band is currently receiving is well-deserved and has been long in coming.

Mohr has the ability to get a full spectrum of different tones from his guitar and — here’s the key — unlike most guitarists, he knows when each tone is appropriate. For every song he writes, he seems able to find a tone that fits the exact message he is trying to convey, as in “Caroline” and the stunningly clear solo on “Please Don’t Tell Her.” It is this variety that makes the album very easy to listen to and memorable.

Mohr and the band get some help from John Lee Hooker in his classic “Boom Boom,” the song that inspired ZZ Top’s “La Grange.” (I read recently that Hooker’s associates had filed for copyright infringement against ZZ Top — nearly twenty years after they came out with “La Grange.” Go figure.) Perhaps Hooker and Mohr are just trying to let the general public in on the fact that Hooker had the idea first.

Throughout the rest of the album, Mohr and friends deliver a variety of rock and jangle pop originals that should appeal to a wide range of people around the world. If Big Head Todd’s path to this point is any indication, they could take the world by storm in the next few years. I could even see a grammy in the works if they keep up this level of variety and quality. For now, though, this album will serve as the introduction of a very talented band to those outside the Boulder, CO area, where the band is based. This is only the beginning for Big Head Todd and the Monsters.