At times the murky, distant guitars, basic drums and calm, harmonised vocals are weirdly passive and spacey; at other times, the band are arresting, attention grabbing; and at yet other times, the album finds a brilliant middle ground. It's this middle ground that makes up the most part of Vivian Girls' sound and supplies the majority of the album's really satisfying moments. It's a sound that's hard to come by elsewhere; the band are short on peers, quick comparisons, and easy categorisation (hence the ugly mess in the second sentence) but they don't bluntly eschew it. The result is a strange but familiar sound, which, taken with the quality of song writing, makes the band (and the album) a real gem.

'Vivian Girls' is full of strange little dichotomies. For one, there's the lyrics: they shift from being so, so basic ('No' is just the word "no" sung over and over) to simplistic but beautiful ("It's alright just leave the light on. I will never ask you why.") Then there's the music: the guitars, bass, and drums are pretty consistently straight-forward chords and 4/4 pounding, but at the same time the vocals are always skillfully harmonised extremely tightly, and to wonderful effect.

The album does little to step beyond being a cohesive collection of short tracks. For Vivian Girls, that is, by no means, a mistake: the strength of the band is their fantastically simple songs. It's a very brief release (20 minutes barely justifies calling it an album), and, although it leaves an undeniable urge for more, the restraint is admirable. For the sake of length, Vivian Girls might easily have padded out their debut, but, thankfully, they didn't; thankfully, it remains an untarnished, consistent (though short) crop of excellent, original, expert pop.

On the whole, it's a great album, characterised by simplicity and permeated by insanely tight harmonising. It's a batch of songs from a fantastic band, taking music at their own pace and maintaining their own excellent standard. Parts of this album are just great punk rock; on top of that there are a few songs dotted around, 'Wild Eyes', 'Never See Me Again', 'I Believe in Nothing' which are really captivating, wonderful tracks; on top of that again there is 'Where Do You Run To', without doubt the album's high, and, personally, a high for 2008 so far. This track perfectly captures Vivian Girls' ability: the vocals are calm, the music is simple, the lyrics are basic yet amazing. For it alone, the album is worthwhile; plus the rest, it is a necessity.