The Sexy Accident packs a whole lot into a tight package.

On their latest release, KINDA LIKE FIREWORKS, this Kansas City three-piece tackles love, lust, loss and infidelity with peculiar panache and tremendous pop sensibility. Continuing the tradition of bands like The Wedding Present, The Cars and early Elvis Costello, the lyrics are sharp, the guitars alternately scathe and soothe, and the drums are blisteringly fast. The songs are intelligent, considered and insightful, but always played and sung with an intensity and urgency that rings of first hand experience.

Jesse Kates, the band'... (+) expand

The Sexy Accident packs a whole lot into a tight package.

On their latest release, KINDA LIKE FIREWORKS, this Kansas City three-piece tackles love, lust, loss and infidelity with peculiar panache and tremendous pop sensibility. Continuing the tradition of bands like The Wedding Present, The Cars and early Elvis Costello, the lyrics are sharp, the guitars alternately scathe and soothe, and the drums are blisteringly fast. The songs are intelligent, considered and insightful, but always played and sung with an intensity and urgency that rings of first hand experience.

Jesse Kates, the band's lyricist and singer, has a deft tongue. Whether recounting the perils of an Internet affair on Baby, it's not cheating, "yeah I know about the tricks / the risks you run with point and click / and I'll be rightly called a prick / I just hope that you're a chick," alluding to the seemingly impossible in Stall, "when you were mine you were so shy that you would hide at your boyfriend's place," or declaring immodest intentions in Flirting with Disaster "I want to unbutton / reveal your bellybutton," Kates is never at a loss for words, though you'd have to ask his wife whether they're the right ones. (-) collapse