This album poses, to me, an existential question—which is really ironic because this is the most over-produced album I’ve heard thus far this year. If I were to take every moment in my life that I had turned on Top 40 radio before boy bands and Spice Girls, it would vaguely sound like this album. The instrumentation is really distinct, Dee Dee’s vocals are blissfully ignorant and wrapped in notably less reverb than I Will Be, and Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves (who wrote “I Want Candy,” among others) produced this album, as he did Dum Dum Girls’ full-length. And to top it all off, it ends with a cover of “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.” Seriously. So, if this EP is pop perfection—the holy ghost of pop music, if you will, and I’m at the pearly gates, listening to this thing, how could it possibly be too perfect? (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Taylor Burgess
Winnipeg music & culture since 1989