“Well I walked up to her, and I asked her if she wanted to dance ...”There’s paying homage, and then there’s “Paying Homage!” I’m not sure which The Explorers Club are up to ... the album cover causes more then a double take with its Beach Boy font, layout, and campy Beach Boyish pictures, right down to the simulated vinyl wear on the CD insert sleeve.Literally, I believe that I’ve time slipped, right back to a warm summer day, on an LA beach in 1966 ... where everything was bouncy, cherry, shinny new, and each wave is going to be better then the last. “Freedom Wind,” by The Explorers Club takes more then their inspiration from the Beach Boys’, and their songs about cars, girls, and fun in the sun. Each track is heavily laced with outright lifts from some of the best songs America has ever had to offer. And while this may at first seem convoluted, and perhaps a bit over the top, if one assesses this release as a piece of art, it works wonderfully.The Explorers Club are not the first to adopt this sound, 10CC certainly owe much to what the Beach Boys’ laid down, as did Elephant 6, and the High Llamas ... but here on ‘Freedom Wind,’ this is a fresh new perspective indeed. The compositional structures are right on target, the harmonies are nearly pitch perfect with a Phil Spector sounding production that layers the vocals, the harmonies, and the instrumentation right on top of each other. But The Explorers Club takes it all a step further, rearranging these layerings at will, to create a lush fluid feel to each and every song, with a swirling organ that matches ascending vocals, all held in place by a killer tremolo guitar. There are times when I just had to go back to the original Beach Boy tracks and play these numbers side by side ... if I didn’t know better I’d swear that “Do You Love Me?,” “Don’t Forget The Sun,” or “Last Kiss” where actually lost tracks that the Beach Boys had neglected to retrieve from the cutting room floor.The guys are far and above the act of a simple cover band, they’ve brought themselves into this concept, an endeavor that if not balanced correctly could have fallen flat on it’s face ... but it hasn’t, and the more I listen, the deeper I’m drawn in. I’m not sure what to do about this record ... so until I figure it out, I’m just going to dig it for all it’s worth.Go ahead, turn up the radio, have yourself a super helping of fun in the sun, and remember ... it’s not about how good you surf, it’s about how good you look.Review by Jenell Kesler