Chances are you've already heard a lot of power pop. Much of it was probably marvelous, and perhaps some of it was a little derivative. At this point, it's difficult to imagine anyone adding anything radically new or different to the genre, as it borrows so much from the past. The Contrast aren't the exception to this rule. Their third album opens with an instantly recognizable Rickenbacker jangle and proceeds to chime its way through twelve polished melodic wonders that couldn't have been possible without Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, The Jam, et cetera, all the way back to The Byrds and The Hollies. However, you can't deny that these are solid, spirited songs. Working within such an esteemed framework, their quality makes all the difference and their familiarity seems comfortably reassuring instead of unoriginal.

Refreshingly real Brit accents (as opposed to fake ones) also work in the band's favor. On a good day, leader David Reid approaches the nasal, seductive tone of long-MIA American power-popper Jason Falkner. He also has the sense to open the album with three good songs, and then top them with three great ones. "The Guilty Party" may equally celebrate and criticize its subject, but that seems secondary as all of its grand, clamorous hooks wash over you while little hidden ones surface after the fourth or fifth listen. "Your Starring Role" is purely critical, but even more articulate and dynamic. Between those shiny bookends, "Catch The Spark" out-dandies The Dandy Warhols; it uses "Tomorrow Never Knows" as a skeletal template, then revs it up to such a degree that it virtually ensures them their own eventual guitar-smashing performance on Top of the Pops.

"Functional Punk Pop Song" has some barbed fun with The Contrast's more fashionable peers and their own lack of cool, although people might mistake the song for Squeeze rather than Blink-182. "Smart" is much closer to young Elvis Costello, especially in its zippy pace, nervous organ and insistent, infectious chorus of "I'm the one with the brains, oh, oh, oh / but I'm not really smart." A five-minute ballad ("Something Tells Me") drags a little, but they make up for it with the Fountains of Wayne-ish "Everything Seems To Get To Me" (is that a synth solo I hear?) and "Disconnected", a taut, rocking, harmony-laden closer.

Fade Back In ultimately pleases a little more than it transcends. It's not an Important Album, but as an advance on the band's previous work, it suggests that they're getting awfully close to crafting one.