Disclosure: I was assigned this review because a certain L Mag editor knew that ‘I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me’, the instant-gratification opener from Asobi Seksu’s debut LP, is the song currently lending its cred to my MySpace profile. Yeah, I know, but it’s just too perfect: coming off like a cuddlier Blonde Redhead (a comparison I’m almost sure I’d still be making even if both bands didn’t feature extremely photogenic Japanese girls as their lead singers), all cascading guitar noise and candyfloss synths. Citrus ought to cement Asobi Seksu’s rep as the most infectious shoegazers going. Drums are a more vital presence here, to the band’s benefit — the propulsive underpinnings marshal their variously sunny and staticky textures into a subtly separated wall of sound, within which Yuki might wax dreamy. It’s a marked improvement over the debut — which was often stretched thinner than its ideas ought to have allowed — but I’m still not changing my MySpace song any time soon.
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