Wargirl

Dancing Gold

CLOUDS HILL

Californian oddballs go back to the future on eclectic second album.

West Coast sextet Wargirl certainly come with an impressive pedigree. Vocalist Samantha Parks’s father James Lafayette Parks sang with US soul outfit Bull & The Matadors, while mainman Matt Wignall has been part of the Long Beach music scene for 20 years, producing Cold War Kids, among others.

Mixed by Mark Neill (Black Keys), the follow-up to their selftitled 2018 debut finds them plundering the past like popobsessive magpies. Hang On is an electro-pop anthem that comes with the disco-ball shimmer of Blondie’s Heart Of Glass, while I Told Ya and Cry owe considierable debts to Fela Kuti and Phil Spector respectively.

If it never quite hits the dancefloor peaks achieved by, say, fellow Californians !!!, there’s no doubting that Wargirls’ hearts are in the right place, typified by quirky standout 2069, which finds Parks longing for a patchouliscented past, confessing: ‘I’ve been wearing bell-bottoms since I was nine’. ■■■■■■■■■■