There’s that bit in Juno where the protagonist and the dude from Arrested Development have a conversation about music (btw, why can nobody talk about music in a normal, non-cringe way in films?), and he says something along the lines of “1993 was the best year for rock”. He has a point, if you think about it – you had Nirvana’s In Utero and Pearl Jam’s best album ever, Vs., as well as the Red House Painters’ first self-titled album.

But Smallgang, a London quartet, would probably go for another seminal record released that year: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement. Their (Smallgang’s) album Trespasses is an enjoyable, if in places one-dimensional piece of guitar rock audibly influenced by the scattered, stuttering riffs of Malkmus & Co.

‘Wrong Side’ does a good job of displaying the band’s strengths: counterpointing guitar lines (often with contrasting tones, degrees of distortion and a separate channel for each of the two guitars), a pleasantly grumbling rhythm section and Simon Kobayashi’s slightly disinterested vocals, which are reminiscent of both Malkmus and Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr. The Archers-of-Loaf-infused ‘Cockpit’ is the catchiest song on Trespassing and contains some of the wittiest lyrics as well: it’s about a pilot reassuring his passengers that, despite the engines stopping and the masks dropping down, he’ll land the plane – before calling out “if anyone knows how to fly this/better speak up now/get off your arse and participate”.

Smallgang share Let’s Wrestle‘s awesome taste in bands (on ‘Leaves’, Kobayashi has a bit of a Tindersticks vibe going on, who incidentally also released their best album in 1993), but lack their ear for a hook and a sense of when to wrap up a song – just because there are a lot of good ideas on an album, it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them (which is what it sounds like they’ve done – the title track is an embodiment of what this reviewer likes to call ‘idea rock gone wrong’).

But you know what – there are some nice grooves, some even lovelier lyrics, and an absolute minimum of overdubs or – perish the thought – synths, and goddammit, sometimes that’s just what you need. Especially if you want to party like it’s 1993.