The recent EP from Championships is a delight. It has six carefully crafted pop classics all written and sung by Cameron Heger, the Championships mastermind. Gifted as he undoubtedly is, Heger gets by with a lot of help from his talented friends. On his last recording, an eponymous debut in November of 2015, it was Sam Fowles of the Parson Red Heads who played the lead guitar. Fowles returns with an engineering and mixing credit. This time the crazy good, melodic lead guitar playing is done by Charlie Morris, formerly of Sunbeam and Liz Vice. Morris’s guitar lines ring out like churchbells on the first Sunday morning in rock’n roll heaven. He reminds me of a young David Hidalgo (Los Lobos). The whole recording has the plaintive pop charm of Marshall Crenshaw’s first album with a little Tommy Keene thrown in.
Make no mistake, those three comparisons—Hidalgo, Crenshaw, Keene– mean that I am affording VERY high praise to We Will All Have Been Brothers and Sisters. Give it a listen.
