***Sour Bubblegum is the sophomore effort on JAZ Records from Vancouver underground balladeer LT. FRANK DICKENS, former singer and songwriter in Vancouver post-punk band PEACE (Suicide Squeeze). It is a concise collection of slanted rock heroics, poems, and yearning serenades bookended by two seasick waltzes and glued together by his signature grizzled croon. This time around, a sense of societal claustrophobia pervades. Ultimately though, optimism wins the day, and perseverance through life's drearier moments is elevated as the noblest of pursuits, with it's own inherent beauty. These songs display the wistful sweetness and rush of classic bubblegum pop craft, but replace the teenage frivolity endemic to the genre with a world weary depth that would find camaraderie with the likes of Nikki Sudden and Leonard Cohen. They are the soured disillusionment of adulthood that never gives way to bitterness or cynicism.They are "Sour Bubblegum".