Pluto - Shake Hands With the Future (1998, Virgin Canada)

Hard to believe this album is eleven years old. There have been many a band to swipe their moniker from that of the ninth rock from the sun, but this Vancouver quartet will be the only Pluto that ever matters to me. When they kicked things off with a handful of singles and a debut album, Cool Way to Feel, for Mint Records back in the mid '90s, the group wavered between Weezer-esque rock and all out pop-punk (gee, never encountered that mixture before). Their second LP, Pluto, was the only one to land Stateside, and as incessantly catchy and incredibly convincing as it was, it stiffed quite royally on my side of the border. Two years later, they delivered their third and final opus, Shake Hands With the Future, a slightly more mature undertaking, which found them easing up a tad on the relentless three-chord melees, and even offering some well-placed flourishes of Moog snyth ("Zig Zaggin" being the most gratifyng example). I'm pretty confident you'll enjoy this folks. I believe the self-titled album is floating around on another blog, and I know for a fact that you can imbibe, at will, the aforementioned debut, Cool Way to Feel on Oh Canadarm! blog. You'll find plenty more biographical info there as well. Maybe I'll get some Pluto singles up sometime...

01. Unsatisfied
02. Zig Zaggin
03. The Goodbye Girl
04. Out of My System
05. The Balls
06. Still in School
07. Plastic Surgery
08. Another Look in the Mirror
09. Dislocated Girl
10. Sweet Sound
11. Desperate Lovers
12. Playing Nurse

Hear