We like getting excited about new music, but there does come a point where you’ve heard it all before.

The Regrettes do what they do well, a catchy bubblegum rock/pop-punk but it’s nothing new and bands like this come, briefly dazzle and disappear (The Pipettes? Black Kids? That other band whose name we forget?)

California Friends opens and it’s a mosh-pit pleaser, starting with a pulsing kick drum leading to a driving, punky, rock ‘n’ roll song with scuzzy riffs and a call-and-response vocal section. I Dare You is next, a more classic pop tune with a melody picked out on guitar. Other songs such as Pumpkin are even 50s doo-wop in sound. The overall enthusiasm (of the listener) fades about mid-way through; there’s only so far you can get with lots of energy but formulaic ideas.

Lyrically it chronicles falling in and out of love, California Friends being the initial meetings (“Won’t you come and hold my hand now / I think that you might wanna / Do you ever listen to Madonna?”) to I Dare You’s falling in love (“I never wanted to get too close to you / But now it looks like I’m getting too close to you”) then More than a Month’s “Do you think of me? Do you wanna call?” Finally it’s over: by How Do You Love? it’s “It’s the little things that I can’t understand / How they love…”.

A bit of fun, but we fear they’ll be in the “who was that band again?” category before too long.

 

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