Called it: This is straight up melodic rock & roll. Tuneful, nice harmonies, energetic but never all that loud, you know how melodic rock does.
I was also right about the serious/humorous lyric mix, although I didn't call the songs correctly. Turns out Lovely Girlfriend is on the funny side, as the singer addresses first the title character's paramour ("you know you have a lovely girlfriend") then her directly ("you know you have a jealous boyfriend”). The dedication to Joey Ramone scans; you can hear the Ramones influence plus it's the roughest track on the album, which is not to be confused with it actually sounding rough. 51-2-1, on the other hand, is very much a drowning-in-the-issues-of-the-world song, which, listening in the present day sounds quaint since you know that if they'd waited a few more months--again, this is from 2001--they'd've really had some issues to write about. And then there's the last few years. Vickie's Not-So-Secret might split the difference. The verses are a lighthearted admission of lusting after catalog models, but the chorus might flip that on its head and comment on the objectification of women. Unfortunately I can't say so for sure because while the mix is well done throughout the entire rest of the album, here the vocals get eaten by the instruments.
I'd place at least some bets on it though, since there a bunch of clever lines sprinkled throughout the record. In addition to Lovely Girlfriend's deadpan humor, opener Our Hero ends on the downer line "these days nobody’s walking on the moon,” and the hidden track at the end--because again, this is from 2001, so of course there's a hidden track--has the killer line "are the stars too faint to guide us to the future we deserve?” Those are the only three (counting LG here) lines that hit me hard enough to write down so it's not like The Simple Things were power pop's Bob Dylan, but their lyrics were certainly a cut above. Plenty of bands never write one line as good as any of those.
Oh, and I noted that The Only Song You'll Ever Sing mentioned long distance calls, but that's just because I haven't heard the term in at least 15 years and I suddenly got rocketed back to the first half of my life.
Simple Things have a decent bag of tricks within the melodic rock sound as well. 'Flicted shows they can build up a song's volume and intensity nicely, plus it's built around the drums vs. the other ten cuts that are built around the guitar figure. Their use of keys here and there gives things variety; Vickie's Not-So-Secret has a particularly prominent and nice piano part. And they do break the mold a bit on the last two tracks. Vodkas With Stalin is indeed about WWII but I need to listen more to get what exactly it's on about. At any rate it's the slowest song on the album and the only one to use an acoustic guitar, plus there's that cool watery echo effect. And then the hidden track, which based on the lyrics I'm guessing is called Millennium, has an extended, spaced out middle where the boys get to try out some effects pedals that didn't elsewhere on the record.
I'll note that Jones has a surprising resemblance to Green Day’s When I Come Around in the A section, but considering that I just found a third song I really dig that blatantly steals the riff from It's A Beautiful Day's Bombay Calling, I'm not about to cast stones.
Power pop/melodic rock isn't my area of expertise but I enjoyed this disc, and I can tell these boys are quality songwriters, plenty of hooks, solid craft, musical range, and some interesting words.
The word from elsewhere on the internet: Discogs has them, but not this album and there's no photo and no listing of band members--I can only tell from the tracks on compilations. Looks like the hidden track's full name might be The Real Millennium.
I'm not remotely surprised to find that their website's gone. IA's got us like always (bless you, Brewster Kahle) but there's nothing to see in November '01, just a band photo and an announcement that Omniphobia's out. By 2005 it was porn--or, from the looks of it, spam and/or virus bait masquerading as porn--and in 2014 it was someone's website about cooking and home maintenance. These days no one owns it.
Glass Tube Records' site is also gone and they don't seem to've outlasted the band, IA's got a basic homepage with a work-in-progress note from 2003 but we're down to html code errors not long after. However, I did just find this blog devoted to preserving their story. And. . .that's it. There doesn't appear to be any further mention of them on the net. Well, I guess there is now.
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