Ingenue:The Lolita EP

Finally a girl band with some guts, present and helping the world remember that girls can rock. This is not a female ‘act’ (Ladyhawke, Lady Gaga etc) but a raw, rock girl band with a flash back to the 90s.

With a lack of girl driven rock acts in the Uk charts over the last ten years apart from Garbage and few others, it’s unbelievably refreshing to hear some old style, reinvented, grungy girl rock. No, grunge isn’t dead, just reinvented, the sound still exists in Ingenue’s ‘The Lolita EP’.

Led by Lauren Doran, influenced by all the 90s Boston music, her tracks attracted the attention of producer Michael Eisenstein, who has a keen eye for this sort of style (Letters To Cleo, Nina Gordon), and helped introduce the style of vocal harmony, reminiscent of Veruca Salt and The Breeders. The backing vocals came courtesy of Nina Gordon and Kay Hanley and drums from Stacy Jones.

The songs are written from the point of view of the innocent, wholesome and beautiful, the ingenue, with an edge of sassy grunge.

Live: The Breeders

The energy of the Breeders and that “cult” music era of the Pixies and Throwing Muses still lives on through the band’s Mountain Battles album, which has been showcased during a UK tour.

And it’s great this band knows its audience very well - proclaiming on stage that ”we know you’re not here for the new album”. Of course, as with all band’s of this status, you kinda hope they’ll play a few oldies and they played a nice 50/50 mix.

Playing at Manchester’s Academy 2, the band knocked out classics such as ‘New Year’ and ‘No Aloha’. ‘Canonball’ was the bonus track that helped the crowd find its feet though.

But what was really well received were performances of new tracks such as ‘Bang On’ and the electric ‘Oveglazed’. Showing the amazing pool of material on the new album, which is a fascinating unification of older fast-tempo songs such as ‘Divine Hammer’ or ‘S.O.S.’ along with the more soulful, comtemplative sides of tracks such as ‘No Aloha’.