The Luxury

In a quirk of fate, this excellent CD entitled Why We Can’t Have Nice Things exists because a bunch of Boston dudes all loved Oasis and didn’t care who found out. The short version of the story is, at the request of a popular Boston disc jockey, some members of crowd-pleasing pop bands (The Halogens and Baby Strange) joined forces in 2004 to form “FauxWaySis” and perform a one-off show. “I drank more than I ever drank before a show, ever,” reports front man Jason Dunn. “And people kept bringing me drinks because, you know, I'm Liam Gallagher and I've got to be drunk. I got so drunk that by the end of the show I actually fell back into the drum set.” At the end of the show Jason had to be carried offstage and some enterprising crowd members took the microphone to sing “Cum On Feel The Noize.”

Jump ahead to 2007, several line-up changes, an ex-girlfriend or two and voila, here is The Luxury and a killer debut CD several years in the making. For sheer instrumentation and production brawn, this debut is way more polished than one might expect from an indie release. It’s Jason on lead vocals, drummer Steve Foster, guitarist Daanan Krouth, bassist Justin Day and keyboardist Brooks Milgate. The guys did all the production themselves, mostly in Jason’s bedroom. His cat even appears, in a happy accident, in a sorrowful vocal (well, a meow) at the end of track one, “Let Go.”

It’s a bold move, taking a tribute band and going all-original. But if The Luxury’s appeal relied solely on that fact, by now they'd be playing soul-sucking wedding receptions and hotel lounges. Instead, the eleven tracks on Why We Can't Have Nice Things indicate that frontman/songwriter Jason Dunn has loftier goals than mimicking Liam Gallahger's drunken antics forever.

He also has a few demons to purge. Every song here explains in some way why, in fact, we can’t have nice things. These are chronicles of shattered relationships, betrayal, self-loathing and human idiocy. “It’s not a concept album, but if it were, the concept would be ‘this is what it’s like to be Jason Dunn.’”

A great deal of the pop appeal is just how eclectic it gets. With some country licks, some electronic wizardry, some zoned-out ambiance it really makes for a dynamic listen. Giving himself permission to go wild stylistically is something Jason didn’t do in his former band, The Halogens, and regrets. “The ultimate example of that is probably the last Halogens record, The Resolution EP, which was six songs and really highly polished pop music. But the rest of what would have been that record went in all sorts of different directions. Looking back on it, I really wish it had been released that way. Because I feel like any time I try to go too far in one direction I wind up shooting myself in the foot.” Standouts are the radio-ready “Rockets and Wrecking Balls,” “Malcontent” and “Seven Stories.” (Lexi Kahn)