Beyond the cooking soundtracks, the bands that never quite died (The Inbreds, The Lodge) and attention to detail, Mike O’Neill builds anticipation for recordings that manage to stand apart from trends of the day. Wild Lines answers the bell, pushing robust guitar and baroque trimmings, often as a tandem. A hard-drive beginning in “Wasted Time” gives way to honeyed harmonies, then wraps up around the 2:50 mark, wasting no time. That’s how they did it in the ’60s, substance not background. Personal advice (“Don’t Forget to Breathe”) and portraits (“Henry”) move along the bright pop confections O”Neill has devised.
