Flying Down To Mono Valley

Wendy Robinson and Polly Hancock face down their utterly normal, hardly insurmountable, nonetheless confounding relationship problems with a matter-of-factness that eschews the standby pop techniques (righteous anger, romantic evasions) that so many young, middle-class white women adopt. They kick themselves for saying the wrong thing ("Monster Mouth"), giggle guiltily as a cute boy talks them into dumping his friend ("Too Jung"), and, on "Nothing," view a happy marriage through a lens of chirpy nihilism ("And in the end they all die"). There's an incipient dreaminess to their guitar chime and synth waft, but the punchy rhythm section keeps their tunes on course.