Caught in the Carousel

The Wombats

The Wombats
Bright Antenna

Combining the punk pop smarts of The Buzzcocks with the smartass lyrical faire of The Wonder Stuff, Liverpool's The Wombats have already seen four of their singles crack the Top 100 in the U.K. Their self-titled E.P. is their first American release and it compiles three of the aforementioned singles, plus two numbers from their second album, The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation. Able to manage an exhilarating pop velocity in the time it takes most bands to get their songs started, The Wombats boast spry, speedy choruses that are seemingly impossible to tire of. "Backfire At The Disco" is singer Matthew Murphy's blow-by-blow account of a date gone wrong thanks to an admitted untoward sexual advance, while "Kill The Director" is a twitchy and driving pop wonder that was evidently written after the band saw the Cameron Diaz film, The Holiday and were overcome by hatred. Elsewhere, "Moving To New York," which is, incidentally, the band's highest charting single (#13) is a catchy blast; "Little Miss Pipedream" is a prancing tale of romantic obsession and "Lost In The Post" benefits from a crunchy call-and-response chorus. Nervous ("I've met someone that makes me feel seasick"), paranoid ("I think the postman intercepts everything I try and send to you") and unabashedly honest ("…my sleazy remark on her whorish dress") Murphy is like a chaotic blend of Pete Shelley and Woody Allen, his flawed tales of modern romance coming fraught with jittery insecurity, bursts of strange confidence and a host of nervous, impertinent comments, the likes of which could leave most fellows dateless for years. Good thing the boy's in band.

--Alex Green