The Lolas have been around for over ten years and they specialize in crunchy melodic power pop. 'Like The Sun' is basically a twenty song compilation of tracks from two earlier and now unavailable albums, 'Doctor Apache' and 'Let's Rock, Rave and Shout With....' both originally released in 2005 by the now defunct Japanese based Wizzard label.
The songs, or rather the recordings of the songs have a slightly aged feel to them, the instrumentation is kept simple and both these add a warmth and clarity to the proceedings, there's no hi tech gloss to sterilize the sound and the sonic landscape isn't cluttered up by a ton of overdubs or panned guitars etc., so the songs have room to breath and occupy a definite space instead of having indistinct and wishy washy edges to disappear into.
Tracks like 'Like The Sun', 'Me And Barbara Stanwyck', display the right amount of guitar muscle to underpin the slightly sneering vocals. 'The Selfish Song' marries cool guitar riffs with an analog synth sound which gives a hint of bands such as The Cars, but the Lolas have their own sound and enough ideas not to be copyists. The band tip their collective hats to the past by covering The Squires 'I'm Going All The Way', The Litter's 'Action Woman', Them's 'I Can Only Give You Everything' and lastly The Sweet's 'Wig Wam Bam', all of whch are treated with the right amount of reverence, but by the way they sit comfortably within all the original songs, they neither stick out like sore thumbs nor display any hint of being mere filler.
This album is full of great songwriting and there is a very welcome sense of economy that lets the songs inherent strengths shine through and the slightly grimey production stops the power pop experience from being overly sweet. The best examples of this genre have always had an edge and a bit of bite to them and 'Like The Sun' can quite happily take it's place amongst the best of them....it's that good!
Reviewed by Kevin Wallbank
