When I saw the photoshop-filtered neon cover of this album, I immediately made a guess that this album contained a considerable amount of retro guitar-pop. When I finally got around to actually listening to it, I found that my guess had been completely accurate - this album is in fact composed almost entirely of retro pop, albeit the pop of REM, Cheap Trick, and Oasis. It sounds good on paper, and the result isn't actually too bad, although Neon Thrills borrow a little too heavily from their influences, without mixing in a great deal of their own style and ideas.

"Sweet Cactus", which by the way is a really awful title, is pop right down to its core. It's aggressive, but it's not angry, it's intelligent, but not so intelligent that it requires constant attention and concentration. All of the great pop records have been like this, and Neon Thrills have done an excellent job at recreating the things that have made those albums work. The music is simple, most songs are just strong hooks backed up by a catchy melody, but this simplicity is one of the big plusses on this album.

This beautiful simplicity is shown on tracks like Disgraceful, which is one of the best unashamedly pop songs that I've heard for a long while. It floats along at just the right pace, with just the right balance between straightforwardness and intricacy, and with enough hooks to sink a battleship. It's not quite as perfect as Modest Mouse's Float On, but it gives it a damn good run for its money. For All I Know is another good one, blending in just a little bit of melancholy with the hooks, that gives the song a nice emotional dynamic.

You might have noticed that, despite the praise that I've dished out so far, I don't sound especially enthusiastic about this album. While everything on this album is pleasing enough to the ear, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of originality flying about. It's not as if every album has to be a dynamic breakthrough in style to be worth listening to, but Neon Thrills seem content to simply copy from the style of bands in decades past. It's quite easy on most songs to see where the idea or the hook came from, and while the songs that they're copying from are usually impeccable, it would have been so much more rewarding to hear the band coming up with some slightly more original material.

All in all, the first time that I heard this album, I was willing to write it off as being simply a cheap imitation of better pop bands from the past. However, after a couple of extra listens, it's grown on me, and now I can say that while it's an imitation, it's definitely a good imitation. Not a classic by any means, but still a solid enough indie rock album.