I bought Division of Laura Lee's first Epitaph release a few days ago mostly because of a Kerrang! quote on the sticker attached to the outer cellophane that read: [Black City's] 12 tightly-wound retro-punk tracks mix the brooding sensuality of Girls Against Boys, with the dark atmospherics of Joy Division and the hip-shaking drive of latter-day Primal Scream." With the nod from a respectable publication like Kerrang!, I figured this album was money. What I found was a band with a lot of promise, but whose collection of songs manifested a marked lack of focus.

Though I generally don't think broad-brush categorization of bands and songs is always fair, one can loosely place each of the tracks on Black City into one of two classes. In the first class of songs, the allusion to Primal Scream was right on. Black City has a strong XTRMNTR aesthetic ... and this is where Division of Laura Lee are the strongest. The opening track, Need to Get Some (download video and MP3 here), kicks it off with a grooving guitar lick that gets the head bobbing and leads into an animated sing-along rock stomp perfect for shakin' it. If Per Halberg's chants of "You need to get some / 'Cuz everybody miss havin' fun" don't seal the deal for you, hand-claps and background police sirens will. Among this class of songs, some might be justified to argue that the layered guitars and dense atmospherics also recall, albeit rarely, the space/noise pop of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. And no doubt there's a bit of the advertised GVSB on The Truth is F***'d (download MP3 here) and Wild and Crazy, in which Division of Laura Lee does its best to impersonate Girls Against Boys. But two of the better tracks in this first class of songs are slower-paced and instrumentally complex, especially in comparison to the songs in my second class below: Trapped In, arguably the best song on this album, boasts a sinister Spiritualized-style bassline, psychedelic swirling atmospherics, and contemplative vocals. In addition, organs, bongos, slide guitar and a sultry chorus make I Guess I'm Healed another highlight of the album.