The new album from The Len Price 3, Kentish Longtails, is a set of short, near-perfect slabs of power-pop that blend influences ranging from The Who, to The Jam, to 60FT Dolls. If the band owes a lot to those past purveyors of this sort of thing, then they at least make the material seem fresh.
If stuff like "Stop Start Lilly" sounds suspiciously like Townshend and co. circa "Pictures of Lily", and "Sucking The Life Out of Me" recalls The Jam, a listener can take some reassurance that kids are still listening to those acts and attempting similar styles. Elsewhere, things get a bit less punchy with the Supergrass-influenced "Pocketful of Watches", and the Kinks-ish "Saturday Morning Film Show", two of the more lyrical numbers on Kentish Longtails. "If You See What I See" roars in a nice approximation of mod-era peers of The Who, like The Move in their early days, while "Man in the Woods" unfurls with a bit more complexity suggesting that this band has more to offer than just derivations of earlier acts' best songs.
The Len Price 3 can crank up this sort of thing really well. If, at times, they lack a certain originality, they make up for that deficiency with a whole helluva lot of spark and fire. Remarkably catchy and substantially tight, the tunes are sure to please fans of all the bands I've mentioned in the course of this review.
Kentish Longtails is out now. More details on The Len Price 3 via the band's official website, or the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Paul Slattery]