Rough Trade Exclusive. Limited to 300 copies. UPC: 0789856131051 Fall in Love again with Balloon Balloon Balloon Submission. That's the word that comes to mind when tasked with spending time on the overwhelming pop planet that belongs to Kai Slater's Sharp Pins. The universe only works when you submit: submit to love, submit to rock music. Submission to the power that comes from a kid wielding his guitar to craft impeccable guitar pop that stands in a pantheon of idols he joins with this record. Of course it makes sense to be mad at first. Everyone was mad at Big Star for getting too close to the Beatles. And everyone will be mad at Sharp Pins for doing the same and then adding Guided by Voices into the mix. How dare he? The hubris. What 20 year old thinks they can out Robert Pollard the man himself? "Queen of Globes and Mirrors?" Criminal. With a worse crime of crafting songs so puzzlingly timeless, a listener may well believe they were poached from a lost Beatles tape. "I Don't Have the Heart" and "(I Want to) Be Your Girl" genuinely confuse from when or where they were made. But if Balloon x 3 reminds us of anything, it's that only Kai can do this. With his 12-string and infatigable obsession with pop music, Slater is uniquely equipped to carry the mantle of not only Pollard and Chilton, but the Byrds too, or the Temptations, the Four Tops, and every other artist trying to nail true love to tape. He employs the "asking for forgiveness not permission" tactic when tasked with borrowing from these greats, our only option is to forgive Slater for giving us these gems of rock n roll- propelling it from the past into a future so melodiously flawless, yet jagged and sincere, we can't help but thank him too for rescuing the genre from irrelevance. Because what Slater adds is entirely his own. An ineffable songwriting sensibility, that despite the heavy borrowing, can only be his. By the end of the album, you swallow whatever anger or incredulity you may have h...