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I am madly in love with this album...okay, maybe that's too soon a statement to make since I've only just heard the entire album today.

But really...the kind of things I'm feeling about Wayward Fire can only be called magical...like how I feel when I take out all of my so-so personal memories from the 80s and just remember how good (and sometimes goofy) the music was...the music you grew up with is (I think) always going to the music (for better or worse) that has an almost mystical hold over you.

Listening to Wayward Fire I'm suddenly that shy high school girl again, the girl who hid in her room on Friday nights listening to all the newest records and waiting for that one that would make the world a less scary, lonely place...the one you could dream your life by until the real one got better.

The Chain Gang of 1974 (great name for a band!) has the kind of sound that belongs in a John Hughes film when all the hairs on your arms rise and you get goose bumps because 'that special song' is playing exactly at 'that special moment.' I can't really define it, I just know not every group (then or now) has it. It's something very special.

I first discovered TCG1974 about a month ago when I heard "Undercover" through a Spin magazine sampler and almost jumped out of my skin. Its energy is instantly contagious and its sound reminiscent of Echo and The Bunnymen. It's the kind of song I couldn't imagine having a better successor, though I would soon find out it did.

But don't mistake a fascination for a great 80s sound for a lack of originality. These guys are awesome in their own right. I impulsively bought the rest of the album online today having only heard "Undercover."

With much relief and very little surprise I discovered Wayward Fire is full of great stuff..."Heart Breakin' Scream," "Teenagers" and "Don't Walk Away" are the three I've gotten to know and love the most in one day's time, but I have formed an attachment to the others as well...

"Teenagers," though, is the hands-down winner, the one that feels like a John Hughes moment, even if I am 41.