Dublin’s Popical Island collective have a shiny, brand new bouncing addition to the family in the shape of Galway band Dott. Sporting the same girl-girl-girl-boy line-up as Kenickie and The Breeders – the ridiculous to the sublime – the band does indeed share the exuberant energy of the former but not, one hopes the same fate. I’m sure the band themselves will be the first to admit the debt the songs on their debut EP ‘Button’ owe to the Spector stable of girl-groups, much like Dublin contemporaries September Girls or indeed The Pipettes a few years ago. With this confection, Dott have taken the well-worn formula and injected it with such lo-fi fun that…well that you’ll run off and put on your Shangri-La’s and Runaways records straight after.
Contained within ‘Button’ are songs of angst, longing, love, sex, rebellion and all the teen emotions – only the good ones mind – your average John Hughes film, or Grease, can muster. A sweet vocal and fuzzy guitar introduces Seen You Lately before the band steps it up a gear into a catchy foot-tapper, briefly dropping a familiar drumbeat in amongst the harmonies. Let’s Do It displays a faint lipstick trace of The Cure’s Friday I’m In Love on its collar, but that’s okay because Dott are in love too.
Leave Tonight is a winner all round with its irresistible “OO-EE-OO” chorus and subject matter that girl bands have been documenting since the origin of the Teenager. And there had to be a song with cherry in the title somewhere – Cherry Blossom tops things of with its allusions to cherries and blossoming. ‘Button’ is a timely release – a perfect accompaniment to these balmy summer evenings, and a nice pre-cursor to a long-player to take us well into the night.