Rosy Boa

Rosy Boa; August 2008

Since venturing off into side projectville, Westmont alum and Senior Year guitarist Kevin Funkhouser has been keeping mighty busy. In between playing cover band axe man around town, Funkhouser has managed to assemble a complete, delightfully original album of pop rock tunes that, well, resonate just a tiny bit more than a rock ‘n’ roll rendition of “My Humps.” The record, aptly titled Bright Colors, mixes elements of Tom Petty at his hookiest and Bright Eyes at their least brooding. But make no mistake-this isn’t bubblegum with a guitar. Funkhouser gets soulful on tracks like the soaring “Outside History” and the country-tinged “Burnout,” and downright rockin’ (in a Ben Kweller-meets-Ted Leo kind of way) on “Such a Shame” and “Moving to Seattle.” Folk-tinged, piano-driven, and imaginative without taking itself too seriously, Colors sucks you in from the start-and doesn’t grow old by the third, fourth, or 20th listen.