Pony Up - Make Love To The Judges With Your Eyes

Now I reviewed the Pony Up single a week or two ago (i'm still not sure whether there's an ! at the end of their name you might note), but the whole album is so damn good that I had to do another post on them. An all female four piece from (where else?) Montreal, Make Love To The Judges... is their debut album and a fine fine one it is too. In fact in time I could see it becoming one of my favourites of the year. I think maybe a tiny bit of this is due to a need to give myself a new favourite girl band to relieve my post-Sleater Kinney breakup depression. But only a tiny bit. Their sound is very much a normal indie-rock one, but somehow they manage to inject enough personality into things to make them stand out. The album is an effortless listen; it's poppy without being cutesey or annoying, it's not too faux-RAWK (a pet-hate of mine when it comes to female led bands, hello Juliette and the Licks), and the songwriting is nice and upfront throughout without one irritating lyrical faux par. They've got a nice C86ish shambly confessional feeling to their songs that somehow makes me think of a female Wedding Present. Though they sound nothing like that. Okay? The albums out in the UK on the 17th September on Laughing Outlaw records (I think its been out in the states for a while now), and the band are set to play some intimate UK dates throughout October and November.

Pony Up - What's Free Is Yours
Pony Up - Possible Harm