Flinch - Enough is Enough

There's a tradition that dictates every insular, low-key, distaff act is compared to the Marine Girls. I get it, but pigeonholing every act as like the Marine Girls dismisses the range and ambition of so many bands.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Marine Girls, but they were so teenage. Comparing being told off by your parents to living in a totalitarian regime (Flying Over Russia)? How about being a bit older, like Flinch's Beth Black, and writing a song called Just Because She Likes The Same Bizzaro Crap You Do, That Doesn't Make Her Your Soulmate Tom?

Flinch are poised between the intimate Pacific Coast harmonies of Rose Melberg, the intensely melodic Fog Pop of Cindy and Flowertown, and the brutally self-reflective humour of anti-folk heroine Kimya Dawson. It will be a major injustice if Flinch aren't the support act on Withered Hand's next stadium tour.

You need this record, and not just because you don't already own one that includes I'm Sorry I Puked On You In That Rented Car.

Romero - Turn It On

Two years ago, Romero's debut single announced themselves with nagging, intense verse hook melodies like The Strokes once did so irresistibly. Those songs are on debut album Turn It On, but find themselves in the company of peacocking anthems that recall Thin Lizzy and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Gutsy, soulful vocals and duelling guitars make Sheer Mag their closest musical contemporaries, but there's none of Sheer Mag's political clout. Romero's fist-pumpin' soft rock seems untroubled by social consciousness but is superbly alive to axe heroics, love's tribulations and the fall out of over indulgence.

The clever money's on Romero dreaming of drum risers and dry ice rather than a socialist revolution. So what? It's rock music that's trying to conquer the world, not change it. Even if it's all surface, it shines gloriously.