The Orion Experience, NYC Girl EP

An instant antidote for shoegaze-moody overload, there are hints of everything from ELO to Partridge Family to New Edition to Jellyfish in this dance-oriented teeny-bopping semi-glam quintet. There’s an assured self-awareness of how goofy The Orion Experience lets itself get on songs like “Vampire,” a giddy game of how far they can go before they’ve exhausted every jaunty rhyme about a woman who resembles the titular supernatural temptress (“strolling through the city/her heart has got no pity for ya/ strutting through the ghetto in sexy black stilettos”). Elsewhere, they do the same thing with guitar sounds and studio techniques, mirroring great 45 RPM sounds from the ‘70s with fiendish devotion.