Most 16-year-old high school kids are celebrating their new found driving liberties, cramming for the ACT, or complaining about their parents. Unfortunately Johnny Callon isn’t like most high school kids and all he has to show for it is his first album. Callon is the young talent cleverly and shyly masquerading behind the name of Wake Up Mordecai. Poptek Records is very giddy to debut Wake Up Mordecai to everyone outside of Vandalia-Butler High School with the release of North to the Nth Degree.

It’s been less than a year since Callon started trying to express himself through song but it is already evident that he has been gifted with a rather mature pop sensibility. All throughout North to the Nth Degree the songs are catchy enough to even make some music veterans jealous. Sample “Girls Don’t Ride in Viking Ships” for a text book sing-a-long chorus. Also listen to how a simple zylophone melody can absolutely make a song like “Now We’re Communicating”. Callon displays an odd sense of humor as well. What else would anyone expect from an awkward teenager? Whether covering the distraction AP Chem can be to romance, his pet Swedish bird, or girls, hips, and tight jeans, Wake Up Mordecai writes with child-like imagination. And he writes well too. More than good melodies, Callon shows he can turn out a witty phrase.

While sheltered and introverted, another part of the allure of Wake Up Mordecai is the way Callon turns hero-like in his shyness. When he is on stage that awkwardness is replaced by a definite and confident comfort. While Wake Up Mordecai is not the first to play the role of geek-turned-rock-star, the fact that Callon is still in the pressure cooker called high school shows that his perspective is way more authentic than the hordes of bands using geekdom as a fashion.

First albums can be embarrassing to some musicians but that is not the case at all with North to the Nth Degree. The humor, the nerdiness, and the pure popiness of the songs make Wake Up Mordecai an endearing new artist to pay attention to. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Johnny Callon discovering just how talented he is. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.