• Listen at: www.myspace.com/acursivememory
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

It’s tempting to call Changes, the second album from Southern California band A Cursive Memory, pop-punk and leave it at that, but if you pay attention to the album that’s not what’s going on here at all. Changes is beach-pop at its best: ultra-relaxed even on the faster tracks and simply produced. You get the feeling these kids could set up on a pier and sound exactly like they do on the album.

Changes is beautifully executed guitar based pop embroidered with fantastic keyboards played by Mark Borst Smith (think Jack’s Mannequin). The album is mostly mid-tempo numbers and ballads with a sprinkling of high-energy dance tracks. A Cursive Memory’s strength is really the slower songs. The faster songs (”Believe”) are good, but not as dynamic as the tracks where the band takes their time and shows off Smith’s keyboard work and the interlaced vocals from singers Profeta and Colin Baylen. The lyrics have a refreshingly optimistic tone, and the band even manages to throw in an honest-to-god love song (”Perfect Company”) without descending into cheesy cliche territory.

Standout tracks are “Perfect Company,” “Lions” and “All The Weak.”