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Led by frontperson MIKE HYDER, THE TREAT plays guitar rock. That sounds a little too plain and simple, admittedly, but it’s accurate. If it’s a rock-related style powered by sounds coming out of six strings on a piece of wood – blues rock, folk rock, power pop, prog rock, hard rock – this Oxford-based trio incorporates it. Phonography, the band’s second album, could have ended up as a headache-inducing hodgepodge of style-hopping genre exercises. But thanks to Hyder’s consistency as a writer, guitarist and singer, tracks as superficially diverse as the hard rocking “Fanfare For the King,” the pop-minded “Roaming” and the storytelling “Bolivian Diary” sound of a piece with each other and the rest of the record. Accomplished and engaging, Phonography is fresh and familiar all at once.
