The Lashes

“Please, Please, Please”
from the album Get It
2006
iTunes

Download an MP3 of “Please, Please, Please” via Columbia/Red Ink
[right-click/save-as]

The Lashes’ full-length debut on Columbia imprint Red Ink is strong one, and hopefully portends a long career for the Seattle rockers. Seattle may have permanently put itself on the musical map in the early 1990s with the grunge movement and the Big Four (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam), but it’s been host to as many good bands as any city not named New York or Los Angeles. The area has spawned The Posies, MXPX, Sleater-Kinney, Harvey Danger and a list of plenty more bands of note, now including The Lashes. Get It shows The Lashes that definitely do, as their power pop fueled with pure punk energy blasts from the speakers like the dam holding their enthusiam just broke. Aside from a couple slower, less raucous numbers (which are quite lovely), the band races through the eleven tracks without stopping to ask if anyone needs a break, leaving listeners breathless and giddy by the end of the first track, “New Best Friend,” and they don’t let up until the end of “Wanna Girl.” “Please, Please, Please” stands out as an album highlight, too, as singer Ben Clark begs for what he wants (whatever that may be…). It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see The Lashes on MTV, taking over the world soon. The album is slick enough (with production by John Goodmanson and mixing by Chris Lord Alge) to fit in the mainstream just fine, but it’s not so shiny that it will drive away the more open-minded indie kids. All in All, The Lashes’ Get It is an unqualified success, a record any modern rock fan should be able to get.