DALE EARNHARDT JR JR with NO

Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr aren’t very Motor City, even if they have named themselves after a stock car racer and wear NASCAR jumpsuits and caps. They profess to have been reared on Motown but you’d never know it from their music, which doesn’t bear much influence of the Stooges or MC5, Alice Cooper or Kiss either, nor techno or any other music from Michigan’s capital city, unless you can think of a musician from there who specialises in summery rhythms, airy harmonies and light, breezy melodies. Ted Nugent? Don’t be silly.

Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr have probably never killed a wild boar with their bare hands but they have released an EP called Horse Power. If ever there was a disconnect between imagery and music, it is this. Lovely stuff, to be sure, but it’s never going to soundtrack a stock car pile-up. It’s not totally wimpy and winsome. Nothing But Our Love is semi-acoustic but the beat is tough and the electronics swirling, with some of the dreamy psychedelicacy of Flaming Lips or Freelance Whales. Simple Girl begins with whistling and has the freewheeling melodicism of early McCartney or Steve Stills – the refrain is pure Marrakesh Express, only the song is given a psych-ish sheen to indicate that this is indie or alt-rock not Guilty Pleasures ironic. Vocal Chords opens with a solemn Beach Boys chorale before giving way to hi-life guitar, a bouncy rhythm and ecstatic chorus that wouldn’t be out of place on a Vampire Weekend album.

They make explicit their affection for Brian Wilson – and brother Carl, who sang it – on their faithful cover of God Only Knows, the fourth track on the EP, which they recorded in a basement, just like Alex Winston did (the rent in Detroit must be cheaper the lower you go), using drum machines and samplers. Now all they’ve got to do is wrap up their other bands – Zott’s group the Great Fiction have just finished an album while Epstein’s Silent Years released an EP last year – and start assembling an album’s worth of this sweet psych pop. They might also want to be prepared for the brickbats that are coming their way because of the NASCAR outfits and their name, which at least one critic described as the worst in rock history (he’s obviously not familiar with Toad the Wet Sprocket). As for the uniforms, we like them, although we’d be concerned about sweating onstage. Maybe they should do a Nugent and keep a couple of loincloths handy.Guardian UK