Sometimes the best music goes unheard, whether it's due to poor promotion, mismanagement by record company higher-ups or by those connected with the band, or lousy distribution. Whatever the case, imagine my surprise when I checked out the release date for the Lilys' disc Better Can't Make Your Life Better and saw that it came out in 1996. My surprise didn't stem from the fact that this record's gone unnoticed by my ears for two years -- rather, it's that the Lilys are a throwback to a time when they could have very well been the house band for a Manchester rave-up circa 1966.

Imagine putting the Yardbirds, the Monkees and early Kinks into a blender, pureeing for 3 minutes and pouring the ensuing concoction out. You'll find (among the bloody mess of tendons, arteries and livers) the lineage of the Lilys, who have managed to make some of the sweetest, jangliest guitar pop this side of "Last Train To Clarksville."

The record kicks off with a Jeff Beck-inspired lick on "Cambridge California," thus beginning a trip into an age of mod haircuts and dark sunglasses. "Cambridge" then melds into "A Nanny In Manhattan," a perfect little pop song that checks in at just under two minutes. By the end of the next tune, "Shovel Into Spade Kit," you halfway expect to turn on the telly and find Ed Sullivan celebrating the Lilys as "big, big stars."

The rest of the record is more of the same, with only "Elevator Is Temporary" giving any indication that we're nearing the end of the century and Churchill has long been dead.

Some critics have dismissed the Lilys (essentially a one-man outfit, the brainchild of Kurt Heasley; Michael Deming handles production here) as a cheap British Invasion derivative. Sure, the best songs here seem to be crafted from the best songs of that era -- think of "Shovel Into Spade Kit" as a reincarnation of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks -- but there's no harm in reinventing the classics as long as they're reinvented well, right?

--Brandon Grimes