Be forewarned: you may envision yourself sitting on a summer porch drinking lemonade while listening to Mad Tea Party’s newest CD. Their sound, filled with retro ease, is southern rockabilly meets country blues meets the Ami Worthen’s electric ukulele. On the album, entitled Found A Reason, Mad Tea Party channels the earliest genres of American music, and adds a dose of alternative fun, spirit, and spunk to them. When guitarist Jason Krekel climbs up and down the frets of his guitar, he plucks the strings with an energy Elvis would respond to, and their songwriting channels that of Chuck Berry. On “Bunny Comes Home,” vocalist Ami Worthen asks, “What you gonna do with your heart/ Now that someone’s gone and torn it apart?” And, she anwers with: “You’re gonna rock and roll all day long,” and that is exactly what the members of Mad Tea Party do.

At first listen, Ami Worthen’s voice has  the sweet twang of June Carter Cash. However, there is also a matter-of-factness in the way she delivers the lyrics, and a sort of detachment in her voice which lends it a slightly more alternative and narrative tone. When she sings the song “I went out,” she sings with the spunkiness of a little girl, and is able to dramatize a different personality.  In fact, each song seems to have a different personality, and Worthen and Krekel have the gift of being able to tell a different story in every song.

On “Polly Put the Kettle On,” Krekel takes the lead vocals, and his voice is relentlessly bluesy. His fiddle is straight blue grass, and it clambers through the song with a delicious ease. “Yellow Trees” is the slow dance number at the church line dance. The melody is as floaty as a summer dress, but the lyrics supply a weather-worn dose of life lessons, as Krekel sings, “To read a book you’ve got to turn the page.” Their harmony at the end of the song is particularly sweet, and the fiddle provides a gentle layer over the consistent dance beat. As the first ballad on Found A Reason, “Yellow Trees” is beautifully mellow and slow, but Krekel and Worthen are still able to preserve their narrative voices.

“I Never Was a Cool One,” tells of the pains of awkwardness in middle and high schools, and is the highlight of the album. Mad Tea Party’s songwriting, no matter how silly it gets on this tune, is in top form as they rattle of a list of things they never were or never had, such as never having good hair or not making the cheerleading team. The song is not only an anthem written in support of other “uncool” ones, but it is also a relentlessly energetic and fun tune. They sound best when they’re having fun. A song like “Waltz of Despair,” whose title gives it all away, is touching and conveys real emotion, but it lacks the zip of their other songs. Mad Tea Party does a complete turnaround from “Waltz” on “Big Noise from Krekel,” during which Krekel in fact produces a whole lot of big noise. He jumps all over his guitar and makes waves out of his scales, and the absence of lyrics is barely noticeable because he makes his guitar talk.  Krekel’s guitar and Ami’s voice also make for a perfect duet on their title track, “Found A Reason,” whose huge bouncy sound sounds like that of a 6-piece band, and not just two people. RSVP to this Tea Party, and show up ready to have a lot of fun.

-Alexis Smith