Pop Music Review : ‘Sugar Tax’: Sweet Concoction for a Teen Crowd

If you think the new California snack tax is bad, wait till you hear OMD’s “Sugar Tax” album, which, true to its unwitting title, amounts to taxation without representation and calories without nutrition all at once.

The swooningly romantic, synth-pop candy man in question is Andy McCluskey, now the sole actual member of OMD (ne Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark--beware of groups that start as artistes and end as acronyms) after the recent departure of former partner Paul Humphreys.

Bringing two synthesizer players and a drummer to the Variety Arts Center on Thursday to back him in the act’s first Los Angeles appearance in more than three years, McCluskey seemed determined that no one miss the other guy.

The 85-minute program was made up mostly of artificial ingredients--programmed samplers, programmed sentiments--not exactly designed for the adult palate. But sweaty McCluskey worked hard enough to please the young paying customers. Still, as a front man, McCluskey can be exuberant to the point of irritation.

Such typical modern OMD songs as “Call My Name” are basically ballads with an arbitrary big beat attached, but little did that stop McCluskey from his half-graceful, half-geeky aerobics, which combined snaky torso moves with flailing-limb treadmill motion.

In some truly odd booking, the opening act for a group with no guitars was the raucous guitar band Too Much Joy, an irreverent East Coast quartet that really is a smart aleck joy on record. In concert, the post-punky satirists proved collegiately goofy almost beyond redemption, but, surprisingly, found favor with the synth-pop-primed teen crowd anyhow.