Mika Miko – We Be Xuxa

Emerging from The Smell, the same LA punk club that spawned No Age and Abe Vigoda, amongst others, Mika Miko return with their second album for the Post Present Media label. On the cryptically titled We Be Xuxa, the band rattle through 12 songs in 23 minutes, with only one breaking the three minute barrier with all the manic tendencies of a child who's eaten too much sugar.Although the production seems to have been slightly tightened up in the three years since the band's last album, 2006's C.Y.S.L.A.B.F., everything else seems to have got much looser, to the point of falling apart. The tracks breeze past and only a couple leave any impression whatsoever; "Turkey Sandwich" is a clattering ode to...well...wanting a turkey sandwich. It's a throwaway at best, and certainly not one that warrants a country reworking at the end of the album ("Barnyard Turkey Mix").Occasionally, We Be Xuxa pushes the right buttons; last year's single "Sex Jazz" sounds like the cover to The Slits' Cut - all mudded-up tribalism and Amazonian bluster - with spidery guitar lines and skronking sax lifted straight out of the X-Ray Spex songbook. Likewise, "Totion" is a post punk floorfiller, all death disco beats and elastic bass, while vocalists Jennifer Clavin and Jenna Thornhill yelp at each other from across the speakers, and sounds so tense that it could be ready to blow at any point. Appropriately, it ends with the sound of an explosion.The band's energy can't be faulted, but for an album that flashes by so quickly, there's shockingly little that sticks. Coming after C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. - which at least had a couple of stunning singles - and in the wake of grrlpop heroines like Marnie Stern and Screaming Females - both of whom have put out vital records in the past twelve months - Xuxa comes as nothing but a messy anti-climax. 33%Mika Miko on MySpace