The Mantles - Pink Information EP (2010) [Mexican Summer] // Grade: B

San Franciscan act The Mantles are well-aware of good music and it shows. The follow-up to their debut, self-titled, Slitbreeze-released LP of last year, Pink Information finds the guitar-led quartet mimicking the best years of proto-punk and paisley pop with a near-perfect, telltale relief. Delivered by the fine Brooklyn-ite purveyors of buzzed-about pop, Mexican Summer, the five songs that comprise Pink Information play like a sheer ode to all our favorite frontmen of leather-jacketed boast.

Their label refers to this as their most “conventionally pop record to date,” and for the most part, this is validated as quickly as opener “Cascades” starts chugging into its Lou-Reed-like swagger where singer Michael Olivares sings “walking around, thinking the world looks good on you” as if it’s The Velvets’ leader himself speaking directly to some homeless, street-walking troubadour about how the grass actually might be greener.

Following track “Situations” takes a weary Iggy-Pop-Idiot path, while EP standout “Lily Never Married” shines through in its Phil Spector-ish drums (or JAMC if you’d like), Dream Syndicate Paisley-ness and rough-around-the-edges tale of one Lily and her story of matrimonial misstep- “now she’s old and what can you say.”

On “Summer Read,” the quartet show just how sharp their teeth actually can be with a blunt, no-bullshit tune accounting cheap love. Olivaries blurts “treat me like a summer read, bake my spine in that sunshine” over a track immediately recalling the Heartbreakers’ or New York Dolls’ spiky, sputtering guitars and hastiness. Six-minute closer “Waiting Out The Storm” wraps up the Pink Information EP with a woozy, slowpop haze and you’re ultimately reminded that the days the abovementioned greats may be long gone, their influence is as endemic as ever.

- The Holloweyed