Album Reviews

With the recent influx of not-quite-mainstream, yet not not-quite-memorable rock bands, "indie pop" has become a hackneyed, hyphenated, four-letter word used to describe them all. Some aspire to it; some condone it; some call the journo's bluff and know they only use the word "indie" since the band writes their own songs and play guitars. It won't take you long to figure out which category Liverpool's The Wombats fall into. The lads' debut album cover is a kitschy collage of teenage knick-knacks foreshadowing the album's plot (disco ball keychain, "I Heart New York" poster—just read the tracklist and you'll get it). Amongst the bric-a-brac, you'll find miniature cut-outs of all three Wombats, holding signs that call out the name of their true love in primary colors: POP. Thankfully, this emphasized declaration is not one made in vain.

The album bandies open with a barber shop quartet-styled a capella overture with pitch-perfect harmonies that may confuse listeners expecting to hear peppy, angular Brit pop. Then comes the album's most memorable track (which is saying something since they all get stuck in your head), "Kill the Director," an anthem of puppy love-gone-wrong, which packs just as much pop-punk punch as The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" and as much venomous confusion as a male-penned review of Sex and the City. This couplet of tracks demonstrates their scope of their capability as musicians and as music connoisseurs. As the album progresses and more three-minute tracks proudly pronounce the slogan "with the angst of a teenage band / here's another song about a gender I'll never understand," the Wombats create honest, familiar songs of heartbreak, failed nights out on the town, unrequited crushes and loneliness that you swear you've heard before—and can already sing along.

Though no band from Liverpool should, by geographical default, be put through the scrutinizing comparison of, well, that other band from Liverpool, these pop-consumed 'Pudlians just might be worthy of it.

—Danielle Allaire
07.23.08