Record Review - 3 June 19 2002
Kevin Tihista was the bassist for the much-hyped, rarely heard Chicago power-pop combo Triple Fast Action. But his solo debut suggests that while his ex-bandmates were blasting Nirvana and Cheap Trick, Tihista was counting the seconds until he could go home and obsess over Smiths records and pictures of his ex-girlfriend.?
On mannered pop confections like “Doctor” and “Beautiful,” Tihista sounds like America’s answer to Belle & Sebastian, wandering the territory between true love and clinical depression. But melancholy never overwhelms him: “Three, two, one — rock out,” he whispers on the “Lose the Dress,” before unleashing a profoundly un-rocking glockenspiel solo that makes it clear Tihista never takes his brooding songcraft more seriously than he should.