I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I hate writing critical reviews. I get no pleasure whatsoever in reading snotty articles, dripping with teenage sarcasm and lurid similes – the kind of pieces we’re all used to reading in that new music tabloid once a week. Angry journalists (/ failed musicians) venting their envious frustrations, built up over years of watching musicians and bands overtake them and their own waning ambitions.

So I’ll try and stray away from that kind of spew whilst telling you all about the new Vivian Girls record, Share The Joy. I get this band. I get what they’re going for, and I get why. And at the moment, the majority of us are eating up the 60s girl-group style, cementing the fact that Phil Spector has a legacy that stretches further than ‘murderous psycho’. At the forefront of this current wave (of bong-water) and lo-fi fuzziness is Dum Dum Girls, and unfortunately for Vivian Girls, though they may have set the retro garage-pop bar a few years ago, Dum Dum Girls swiftly plucked it up and threw it another 10 metres up in the air last year.

What with the superbly received LPs of the likes of the aforementioned DDGs, Warpaint and Beach House, I’m sorry girls, but you can no longer get away with being attractive and holding a guitar to gain column inches. Don’t get me wrong, the album isn’t bad, it just isn’t that great either, which is a shame. There are glimmers of hope in the quite hooky ‘Sixteen Ways’, and catchy ‘Dance If You Wanna’; but other than that, the rest kind of washes over you in a samey, kitsch, garage-band kind of way. If this was the band’s first release, I may be a little more open or hopeful as to how they could develop – but as it’s their third studio album, I feel that they could have been a little more experimental and diverse in the production style. Maybe this is the type of album that is just good, sunny background music – it certainly didn’t offend my ears whilst me and my flatmate were cooking dinner – so maybe stick it on in the car or whilst you’re having a BBQ or something. But don’t expect it to grow old with you anytime soon.