I know what you’re thinking – when I first came across Boys Like Girls I thought the exact same thing. If the band win any awards this year, worst name ever will probably be at the top of the list. But shake the appalling moniker away and you’ve a band that have all the hallmarks of something really, really good. Sure, all BLG do is mimic a toone of other acts, but with sugary-sweet hooks and melodies in abundance, and the knack of making the listener sing along like a crazed loon, it’s almost impossible not to like this record.
If you like Cartel, Hit The Lights, Valencia and all those inoffensive pop-punk bands re-igniting my love for all things melodic, Boys Like Girls will become one of your new favourite bands. There’s no attempt to reinvent the wheel, no attempt to do anything too taxing – this is simply a record where the band does all the simple things really fucking well. Almost every song has a chorus to die for or a verse that sticks out a mile. And it’s not for being clever or trying something slightly different – this is literally as basic as it gets. But with songs as good as ‘The Great Escape’ and ‘Top of the World’ you really don’t need to go overboard.
Of course slick production helps, and ‘Hero/Heroine’ is as slippery as an eel, possibly a little cheesy too, but then that’s what you get with this type of music. While a couple of tracks – ‘Thunder’ and ‘Up Against the Wall’ – disappoint, the vast majority are highly impressive. None more so than ‘Dance Hall Drug’, a song which I believe has ‘radio’ written all over it. The truth is that Boys Like Girl have that same sound as a stack of other bands, but while originality is not in their vocabulary, good times, pop songs and huge melodies most certainly is. Fans of Cartel will lap this lot up – get to know them now before they get big…