Autogramm “What R U Waiting 4”

We’re always a sucker for a new power pop band, especially one that also has a more ‘rock’ element to it as well. The fact that Autogramm also include members of brilliant bands like The Loyalties and Black Halos then we knew we HAD to give this album a listen. That’s even before we throw in the fact that some of the tracks were co-written by Rich Jones (a man who seems to collect brilliant rock bands eg Michael Monroe, The Loyalties, The Yo Yo’s etc!)

The album opens up with the absolutely brilliant “Jessica Don’t Like Rock n Roll”, one of the best starts to an album we’ve heard in a long time. It’s like a combination of sci-fi pop, rock n roll and power pop all rolled in to one. There’s certainly plenty on here for power pop fans to love. Title track “R U Lookin’ 4 Love” is perfect 80’s flavoured power pop whilst “Sea Of Regret” is a catchy little pop ditty. We’ll be amazed if you don’t end up clapping and singing along to “Small Town”. A special mention should go to “Cool Kids Radio” which is an absolutely awesome song and, ironically, is the sort of thing we would LOVE to be played on the radio.

The great thing about Autogramm is that, unlike many bands in the ‘power pop’ genre, they don’t fall into the trap of being too one dimensional. There’s a whole host of sounds and influences throughout the album. For example, “Bummer Party” has a real eighties synthesiser feel to it. That ‘synth’ sound is taken even further with “Wandering Eyes” and “The Modern World” which recall Devo or as a more modern reference White Witches.

On songs like “Peter Pan” and “I Wanna BE Whipped” they again manage to combine the sci-pop, power pop and rock n roll influences to brilliant effect. When they do that, they remind us of the criminally underrated and relatively unknown Pink Grease (the aforementioned White Witches include former members of Pink Grease).

Now Pink Grease should have been huge, and we’re still gutted they weren’t (and that we didn’t pick up on them at the time they were actually around!). That’s a fate that we don’t want to fall upon Autogramm. This is a great album with songs that have the potential to be huge. The main challenge for the band is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a ‘scene’ to help bring them to more mainstream attention. It is therefore incumbent on you to make sure you buy this album and spread the news!!