_"Where do all the lovers / meet with one another / in an effort to uncover what has happened to their salad days?

...YeyeyeyeyeyeyeYEAH!"_

And in that, Little Ones, you've won me.

Maybe it's just because this day finds me in an unusually good mood, but I can't resist this band. Normally I'd leave this saccharine stuff to someone with bubblegum ears, but it sounds like all LA's The Little Ones would have to do is breathe within 10 miles of a mic' and a heart-melting melody would find its way out. This is propulsive, dizzying, wistful - as gratifying as all your nostalgic fantasies come true; slightly built and bitter-sweet. In a phrase, everything that guitar pop should be.

As the song breaks into action, its singer yelps out like The Shins' James Mercer pining for his purple bottle; blunt, ice-pick guitar aching away in the background like CYHSY if they were about 10,000 times more enthusiastic. So enthusiastic, in fact, that it makes me want to shit myself. Shoot myself? It's a thin line, but happily one that The Little Ones don't cross; thanks in chief to the gang cries that punctuate 'Lovers...' in all the places you do in your mind.

So, so tidy - it'd be aesthetically unjust to decorate this with odd numbers.