"Against all odds, The Strawberry Smell (strike one), a French band (strike two) that titled their album Odorama (strike three) have created an amazing...album..." It's not often that a press release makes me laugh, but this one really did the trick.

Odorama is an odd CD; the packaging is all about sleek, orange and white and curvy retro French suave spaceman techno design, but instead of four sexy Frenchmen there are four dorky looking guys in space pajamas on the cover (including one who looks like Beck, with even ickier facial hair.) Then there's the music...

Isn't one of the primary benefits of being French the fact that you get that fancy accent for free? These fellows must have a lot of other things going for them, because they've all but abandoned their native tongue in favor of the classic-American-popsters-with-fake-Brit-pop-accents approach. The really strange thing is that it works! These are terrific, fuzzy, harmonized pop songs, with little organ riffs, happy bass grooves and crunchy guitars. The lyrics make no sense at all, and seem to have been passed through the babelfish one too many times, but you're not really listening to guitar pop for the lyrics, are you?

"Balthazar" stands out as a classic Brit-pop sing-along; you'll almost expect "Wonderwall" to follow it. "Zensong #9" has terrific vocal performances that show off the band's considerable melodic and harmonic gifts. "Undersphere" milks the groovy rocking organ trick for all it's worth. "Footprint" is the band's dreamy, fuzzy-voiced nod to the fab four. Add to all of that fun stuff the slightly disconcerting fact that this is music made by a bunch of French guys who live in a plastic spaceship and you've got the makings of an odd, slightly goofy and thoroughly enjoyable disc.