Los Angeles produces hyped bands at a rate of knots. It’s indicative of a celebrity culture we normally reserve for the film industry. Such is the extremity of the infection, from a British vantage point blistering cool sprawls across the city, touching every musician within a twenty mile radius of Canyon Lake Drive.

That’s far from the case, as Kitten prove. Despite holding a residency at The Echo, the teenage band haven’t been affected by the hipster chic of their local competition. Good, because they’re producing music that’s true to their own vision – you would assume. Bad, because it’s still stylised but instead takes influence from the mundane and manufactured rock-pop of the last decade.

Debut EP Sunday School does everything but bark, “Sahara Hotnights, Hepburn and The Dollyrots” as a pulsing, continuous beat. Its painless, pointless melody thrives off and embodies Hot Topic. Those niggling concerns of pretentiousness and disposability have gone, but they’ve been replaced by nothingness. From opener and supposed classic ‘Kill the Light’ to the fuzzy ‘Allison Day’ all I hear is unoriginal noise. Closer ‘Kitten with a Whip’ reflects the hysterical pout of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Fever to Tell, but it doesn’t exactly dismiss claims of, “that’s so 2000!”.

At the tender age of 15, front woman Chloe Chaidez has been hailed a child protégé. She plays well for her age, but that’s unfortunately also what blemishes this release. Essentially this is what happens when you lend a teenager a copy of The Donnas’ Spend the Night and tell them they’re listening to the sound of God. No amount of comparisons to female fronted breakthrough acts will save the resultant record. Far from a protégé, Chaidez is a misplaced product.