Too True

The Dum Dum Girls' third album comes with an exhaustive list of inspirations that helped singer Dee Dee smash through her writer's block. A love of Suede, Stone Roses, Siouxsie Sioux and surrealism fed into her attempt to "chase pop into the dark". Which is to say she wants to make her earlier stripy-tights-and-bowl-cut garage-punk seem more sophisticated. For Dee Dee, that's by way of shoegaze: Cult of Love and Evil Blooms are all swirling vocals and rockabilly riffs, like School of Seven Bells penning grindhouse tunes with Goldfrapp. Are Your Okay?, meanwhile, paints Dee Dee as a woozier Chrissie Hynde. But by the time you reach Lost Boys and Girls Club, the album has overmedicated with reverb and fist-biting lyrics (pain, pleasure, exes, hexes). There are brief moments of greatness but between that and songs like Trouble Is My Name – naughty! – Too True is as squeamish as it is smouldering.