The Dalloways

Sold; I’ll take two, please. From start to finish, this five-track EP from California’s The Dalloways is a gem. Dirty Money and Filthy Love, with its dry easy wit and lush pop sensibilities, is delightful in all the right ways. From the outset, it's instantly reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian, and vocalist/lyricist Gerhard Enns delivers breathy pop vocals that seem to blend a fresh and lively cocktail of young Brian Molko and even a bit of Davey Havok in some kind of sexy and cool retro shaker. This is not to say that the Dalloways’ are particularly derivative; rather that, right out of the starting gate, the elements conspire to conjure up other things you’ve probably also loved at some point in time. Cortnie Enns' keyboards and dreamy back vocals, drummer Aaron Wall, bassist Matt Wall, and lead guitarist Ricky Gonzales round out the quintet, buoying and bolstering Enns’ easy, accessible delivery.

Dirty Money and Filthy Love is effortlessly cool, though it very occasionally pushes a bit too far. I speak principally here of the solitary clunker; a lone, cringe-worthy passage in the track "Me and Thomas Hardy." Here we find Enns’ intoning that the longed-for and lusted-after subject is ‘kinda like Tess / In that book that takes place in Wessex’. (Ouch, dude). Otherwise it’s a clever, catchy song amidst a varied and delightful clutch of equally appealing and well-crafted numbers.

From the peppy title track, to the almost ‘007’-esque closer "Didn’t Have the Time," Dirty Money and Filthy Love captures fragments of the best parts of ‘60’s kitsch and ‘90’s Britpop, and expertly recasts them in an eclectic, eminently stylish and contemporary way. The Dalloways, frankly, are just a joy to listen to.

8.0 / 10 — Kristin