“Grand Salami Time!” by Baseball Project (Omnivore Recordings)

Baseball’s anthem “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was crafted by two Tin Pan Alley songwriters who had by no means attended a sport. By distinction, the tunes on “Grand Salami Time!” come from a band with intensive data of the game.

The album is the fourth by the Baseball Project, and the group – Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, Linda Pitmon, and former R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills – mines nostalgia and esoterica to search out recent material for 16 songs.

We’re speaking inside baseball: A tribute to pitcher Jim Bouton makes a veiled reference to his profession file of 64-64. The track “New Oh in Town” salutes Japanese heroes previous and current. “Screwball” cleverly merges two topics because it recollects gamers who pitched greater than a century in the past.

Most subjects are paired with storage rock that offers Buck an opportunity to serve up some pleasant guitar squall. Also contributing is co-producer Mitch Easter, who labored on R.E.M.’s early albums.

The band finds room for such modern clatter as launch angle, exit velocity and WHIP, however the most effective songs contain a unique sort of analytics. The bluesy “Erasable Man” laments the colour line, whereas the acoustic people of “That’s Living” contemplates life’s quick season.

As on earlier albums, just a few lyrics may use a sports editor, or any editor. “Eight-hundred-sixty-eight longballs would fly” simply isn’t singable. But no band bats 1.000.

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