SCOTT SAMUELS: Sunshine & Starlight

Scott Samuels is a San Diego singer/songwriter whose website tags his music as “powerpop.” Part of the SD scene since the late ’80s, he has been involved in several band projects, including Roxy Dioxide, Kitten Pharmacy, and other groups, including a stint in a Neil Diamond tribute act. As a solo, he has been busy, with six releases since 2013. His latest is a five-song EP, Sunshine & Starlight.
Samuels wrote four of the tunes and plays all of the instruments, except for keys on one track. He is among the growing list of artists who have expanded their role from guitarist to cover the other instruments, as well as self-producing the set. Available for download, the sound on this project is energetic on a group of single-length songs (all but one in the 3-1/2 minute range.) The opener, “Don’t Let Go,” cranks things up from the get-go, as Samuels piles on layers of guitars and a churning rhythm section while making the lyrical commitment, “We’ll be together now/And forever more/ From this moment on/ There’s no in-between.” The up-tempo tune has a strong bass/drum driving force, like power pop should.
“More Than Fine” flashes a Tom Petty/Heartbreakers influence, this time expressing his feelings for a lover who he recently met and fell for, power pop that rocks convincingly with crystal clear guitars that sound like Rickenbackers, and gets dynamics mileage from infectious, harmonized choruses. The crisp guitars are back on “Intuition,” which adds keyboard strings to fill out the sound. Samuels has some well-grounded lyrical ideas; on this tune it is about a connection described as “There’s only so far thoughts can take me now/ Just gonna feel it from the heart.”
The longest song on the program is “Before They Knew It.” The pace here is slower on a tune that might be too long, as the subject matter is the saga of a long-term relationship of a couple from age 16 to 60, from young lovers to two relative strangers whose wonderment with each other was eroded by the passage of time and circumstances. Tim Moore wrote “Rock and Roll Love Letter,” which closes the set, and it zips along briskly, a chugging rocker that is the catchiest song on this disc, featuring some impressive Samuels guitar playing while delivering lyrics like “Cause you see an ancient rhythm in a man’s genetic code/ Gonna keep on rock ‘n’ rolling till my genes explode.” Sunshine and Starlight offers an enjoyable batch of well-crafted pop, courtesy of Scott Samuels.