The Wombats

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

The growing trend in post-millennial Brit-pop bands seems to favor embracing the style's inherent disposability. Rather than going for a Damon Albarn-like arc of stylistic exploration, more and more U.K. bands are shooting for that one great three-minute pop single that overshadows everything else they will ever do: the Kaiser Chiefs' "I Predict a Riot," Dogs Die in Hot Cars' "I Love You 'Cause I Have To," the Fratellis' "Flathead," Little Man Tate's "Man, I Hate Your Band," et-bloody-cetera. In the case of the Wombats, the three-minutes pop single in question is "Let's Dance to Joy Division," a genuinely swell bit of tongue in cheek new wave revivalism that's by far the best part of the Liverpool trio's debut album. In the tradition of fellow Scousers the Scaffold or Half Man Half Biscuit, there's a heavy dose of humor to the Wombats, who started out as much an improv comedy/performance art act as they were a pop band. Indeed, the album starts with the nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is doo wop pastiche "Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials" before righting itself with the spunky pop-punk of "Kill the Director." Jokey material like the herky-jerky ode to schoolboy crushes "School Uniforms" and the self-consciously smutty tale of unrequited love "Patricia the Stripper" lowers the overall tone. It's not that there's anything wrong with humor in music -- Madness, one of the Wombats' most obvious touchstones, wrote some hilarious songs -- it's just that the funny songs are neither particularly side-splitting nor particularly tuneful. Songs like "Backfire at the Disco" balance the yuks with catchier melodies and less of a sense that these guys are one step away from putting on moose-antler hats and giant sunglasses. The Wombats may surprise us all and turn out to be a band for the ages (did anyone really think Beck would turn out to be one of the great songwriters of his generation the first time they heard "Loser"?), but the just-for-a-larf vibe of A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation suggests otherwise. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi