Choirboys Gas

A quintessential él Records release. Label boss Mike Alway offered Essex teenagers Cat Rees and Cally Davis a deal without actually hearing them sing (“oh that doesn’t matter” he reportedly reasoned), and paired them with his in-house writing and production talent. What followed was a knowing, yet joyful collision of bubblegum pastiches pulled together with a magpie DIY punk attitude. The pair’s singing occasionally veers towards caterwauling, but the songs are fantastic, running the gamut of girl group sounds. You can imagine the reggae-tinged “Lemon Tart” being an actual chart hit in the hands of Bananarama; “Curry Crazy” (food is a big fixture here) is a Day-Glo punk thrash that sounds like The Go-Go’s in space (“we don’t want boys, we want some spicy stuff!”); the sparse “Discotheque” lands closer to Talking Heads or Liquid Liquid than the Shangri-Las; while “Leigh-On-Sea” is a gorgeous Erik Satie-inspired reflection of life in a British seaside town.