Sonny Smith’s ‘Tomorrow is Alright’ had a limited vinyl release last year, and now Fat Possum have picked it up just in time for the lazy end of late summer. With the help of his loose group of Sunsets (including Kelley Stoltz, and assorted members of Citay and The Fresh and Onlys), Smith pays tribute to the teenage rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop sounds of the 50s, as filtered through the ragged garage of the Velvet Underground and their honourable disciple Jonathan Richman. It’s Richman’s breakthrough Beserkley period that has the greatest influence on Sonny & the Sunsets, from Smith’s casual vocals (all ‘uh huh’ and ‘oh yeah’ sighing) and the Sunsets’ relaxed swing to the album’s boxy, practice-room production acoustics – a dead ringer for the peculiarly intimate sound Richman achieved on ‘Rock ’n’ Roll with the Modern Lovers’. Hearteningly though, Smith doesn’t fall back on faux naive lyrics and wilfully slack musical ineptitude, which really would have stuck in the throat. Instead, his literary training (Smith has tried his hand as an author, playwright and artist) sees ‘Tomorrow is Alright’ make space for sci-fi short stories (‘Planet of Women’), deconstructive autobiography (‘Chapters’) and, on perhaps the album’s sole lyrical misfire, Ween-style double entendres (‘Death Cream’). As a whole, ‘Tomorrow is Alright’ is a winningly charming album, with some lovely, direct songs from Smith (‘Stranded’) and many entertaining vocal interjections from the Sunsets. Closing number ‘Lovin’ on an Older Gal’ finally sees Sonny & the Sunsets plug in the electric guitars for a hypnotic VU finale, with Smith and the band trading lines and riffs to the ‘Waiting for the Man’ rhythm, and rising above an admittedly unpromising song title through Smith’s affectionate metaphor of the object of his desires as a ‘loving tree’. A hidden gem of an album, deservedly given a second chance. SH