Your first "favorite" artist is often a drug-addicted dropout who likes to make big statements about life for four minutes at a time. Then you turn two, and realize vocals alone can't keep your "man in the mirror" from being a simpleton and a sod. A few people never reach this conclusion; here's how to spot them: they are the same kids who never learn to multiply, let alone walk. They work at CVS/Pharmacy, and their function is to act defensive about anything that confuses them: coupons, photos, store sales and smart bands. Ask one of them about The Pearlfishers and you'll hear some prattle about the band being slight, escapist entertainment.

Well, to hell with these idiots at CVS/Pharmacy! The Pearlfishers are an intelligent, classy pop band, skilled at capturing the indescribable everyday moments of life in song. When they sing of childhood ("I Was a Cowboy"), they go so far as to describe pictures in your own house, when Dad was eight, on a horse and happy, if not thoroughly so. And when they're trying to put forth the notion that "everything works out", the members of the band break out into the signature sound of contentment and joy: they whistle. "The Vampires of Camelon", an instrumental that swirls with Bacharach cherries, is the B-side to any great sporting event on a Sunday afternoon. It's all the life that's still going on, blossoming, as you eat your chicken wings indoors.

Do all their songs create states of bliss? No -- and that's not their intention, as continued bliss is an "escapist" luxury. To draw a parallel to Eric Rohmer's films (which are evoked by every Pearlfishers album cover), they're out to capture the smaller moments in life. They sing and celebrate the moments that aren't grave or memorable enough to make your first "favorite" artist, the drug-addicted dropout, pick up a pen. They sing about you, as you "paint on a smile", and about me, the critic who adores them: "Is it any wonder?"