Introducing.. PENS

PENS are a cute, all-girl garage pop band from London who play a loud and fuzzy mix of garage punk and 60s style pop harmonies. I was initially quite shocked when i realised that they were from the UK - their music sounds like everything i had long since associated with the tropical beach punk explosion the US recently (Vivian Girls/Wavves/Times New Viking), but as it turns out they're sparking off part of a DIY punk music movement in the UK - because its certainly not just them playing this kind of music over here.

Until this point every release Pens had done was a split; they've done them with Male Bonding, Graffiti Island and not to forget the four way split they've shared with the latter, as well as Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles, which came out on Art Fag this August. Nearly all of the aforementioned projects are British. On De Stijl records, their debut album Hey Friend What Are You Doing came out at the end of September 2009. The musical result is ramshackled and cascading beach punk, a hazy mess of overdriven melody and fuzzy, but controlled noise. The result is USA inspired to say the least. The 60s pop vocals of Amelia, Steph and Helen saw them support No Age last month, and they had a series of tour dates in the US this August and the UK in this October. For now the shows are over, but i'm going to be keeping a close eye on them for early next year.


video via De Stijl records

You can download Freddy, High In The Cinema, and Networking below watch the video for High in the Cinema above. Be sure to watch this space for live shows + more releases early next year.

PENS on MYSPACE (+more tracks)

DOWNLOADS
PENS - Freddy (MP3)
PENS - Networking (MP3)
PENS - High In The Cinema (MP3)