Wildlife

Simplicity is an often overlooked quality in music. While 2012’s complex, clever, and painstakingly crafted material from the likes Alt-J or Django Django deserved to be showered with the kind praise it was, there is definitely something to be said for a two-piece band making engaging, joyous music with little more than three chords and an active, mischievous imagination. As if to conveniently highlight this point, the Lovely Eggs open Wildlife, their fourth album, with “Allergies.” Bringing together an everyday subject matter, a handful of distorted power chords, and refreshingly straightforward Lancastrian female vocals, the song is the perfect tonic for rediscovering an innocent, playful, and simple side of music. What’s more, song lengths seem unimportant to the Lovely Eggs, with Wildlife featuring a host of tracks under a minute long for those with a passion for sugary, bite-size chunks of punk-pop. But while at first glance it would appear that Holly Ross and David Blackwell (who also happened to be married) do not pour over their work like some of their more complex musical counterparts, Wildlife is packed full of the kind of catchy, addictive, and thrilling moments that beg to differ. Despite its brief stay “Don’t Patent That Shoe” packs in plenty of musical twists and melodies that give an assured nod in the direction of Kim Deal, while on “Food,” we are treated to a quirky story of love built around metaphor. Heavily influenced by American guitar music from Nirvana to the Pixies to Sonic Youth, there is also a very British core running through the Lovely Eggs, who seem equally keen on dipping into the likes of Super Furry Animals, Pulp, and X-Ray Spex to create their sound. From the charming “I Just Want Someone to Fall in Love With” (“So I walked up to the shop situated on the corner/To see if a certain someone could make me a little warmer”) to the building fuzz of closer “The Castle,” the Lovely Eggs make the art of brightening the airwaves while sounding this cool seem all too easy.