Betty And The Werewolves – Tea Time Favourites

Betty And The Werewolves. Whether that was written on a book, movie poster, video game or album cover it’s going to garner significant interest at the content within. Add to that a splendid album title of Tea Time Favourites and you are well and truly cooking on gas. But, does this debut LP from three girls and one boy from London and Cambridge deliver beyond their terrific names?

Upon opening their selection box of sugary delights it becomes immediately apparent that this is a biscuit-tin filled to the brim with Jammy Dodgers, chocolate Viennese sandwiches and those foil wrapped ones with the orangey bit on top. It starts with the spiky-pop-punk of previous single ‘Euston Station’, that spurts dynamism in every direction and charges forward with a genuine passion for the music they are making. Betty And The Werewolves clearly know how to have fun and adore every minute of it.

This insatiable energy persists throughout the record; as the first half completes and the second half commences there is no drop in quality. No one has been at the bottom layer stealing all the best biscuits and leaving piles of uninteresting half broken digestives. Case in point is ‘Plastic’ – their Tetsuo for the polymer generation – juxtaposing twanging guitar with tales of future plans to sow pieces of plastic into one’s face (obviously).

The only silver bullet to these werewolves is that the album just kind of ends with no fanfare or farewell wave. The final track ‘Hyacinth Girl’ is certainly the weakest the record has to offer, acting as an unwelcome come-down from the sugar-high offered by the rest of the album’s wide-eyed indulgences. Removal of this altogether or positioning it elsewhere would improve the holistic listening experience no end.

There’s so much great going on that a slightly damp curtain-close cannot detract from the fact that this is a well-written and well-performed album from a group you can’t help but fall in love with.