(Light In The Attic/Inertia)

Tunes ripped from the heart of Saturday night.

Mingle opens with a song about the joy of hearing your own song being played by a DJ. Maybe that seems a little premature, almost presumptuous, for the first song of a debut album, but I’ll be surprised if these songs don’t make it to your local DJ’s playlist post-haste. The Saturday Knights blend ’60s surfer-rock harmonies with ’90s rap lyrics and straight-up rock, aided by guests like The Dap Kings and the guitarist from Soundgarden, but what they sound like when it all comes out the other end is pure pop joy. They’re everything N.E.R.D. dream of being and biting at OutKast’s heels while they’re at it. Mingle also shows they’ve got an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop history, with frequent borrowings from others that lends their catchier moments almost instant familiarity, though they avoid outright theft most of the time – and when they do steal it’s with tongue in cheek, as it is when they quote Method Man’s quoting of The Rolling Stones in Dog Park or ask ‘Who wears short shorts?’ in Surf Song (the answer is not Homer Simpson). Too much analysis probably won’t benefit this kind of pop-rush perfection, though. All you need to know that it’s definitely worth asking the DJ to put it on for you.

****˝           

JODY MACGREGOR

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