Johnny Boy
Johnny Boy
Speak'n'Spell/Universal


Johnny Boy are the pair of Davo and Lolly (on vocals, loops and guitars) who pump out a humongous, thoroughly ingratiating, wholesale pillage of 50 years or so of British and American pop - Motown swagger, bleary late-night trip-hop, Northern Soul, Phil Spector (a main, if updated, point of inspiration) and Brian Wilson.

Lolly's vocals fall somewhere between Petula Clark and Geri Halliwell with enough venom for the right spots, but there is something in the delivery that left me feeling cold.

You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve pilfers the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' - which can be heard as clear as day in the intro, which launches into an all-horns blaring, big beat-constructed, nu-Spectorish wall of sound. Despite its over-production, which teeters over the edge of bombast, its catchy-as-hell melody makes it work.

On Livin' In The City Lolly spits out an alternate-universe club travelogue from the "All-night Twilight Zone," where she refuses "A cheetah and a chocolate throne," and yelps with faux-glee at the "16,000 Sony beatboxes tuned into rock and roll," while the drums pound away and the guitars spin off into oblivion. Meanwhile, All Exits Final sounds a little too much like The Byrds and The Kinks.

While they can deliver a world-beating pop record, this London duo has packed up every contradictory impulse they can find into a brick and sent it through your window. Whilst the lyrics might shout down rampant materialism and money-grubbing on one side, they sing great wide-screen blockbusters on the other. It was difficult to define a constant, single focus as the music pogoes all over the map.

I found this record hard to love, but for you this could be a joyful romp through the glistening alleyways of pop.

Lauren Boxhall