The Like. Release Me.

William Gillespie

Picture the scene.

On our radio show, Rock Geek F.M., we are hosting the Rock Inbox, a segment dedicated to the station's new arrivals. In the cramped studio, while brand new music plays, three of us sit around the microphones, absorbed in our work opening packages and labeling CDs. Then, like the spread of a communicable infection, one by one, we each start nodding to the beat. Confronted with powerful music, the nervous system's involuntary reflex has kicked in before we are conscious of it. We look up from our tasks, blink, and finally somebody asks:

"What is this?"

"It's The Like."

"It's good."

"I know."

Release Me, the new record by The Like (an understatement) mixes the fierce female harmonies of the Vivian Girls, the punk energy of Those Darlins, and the top-of-the-charts writing of Leslie Gore into a crafty girl-group sensibility that is irresistibly winning, featuring great pop changes, fuzzy sixties garage guitar, chunky keyboards, and enough hooks to rid the Illinois waterways of Asian carp forever.

They got it right. Play it now, loud, at parties, in your car, getting ready to go out, washing dishes, sad and home alone, on your boombox, on your iPod, and on headphones all day at your dead desk job.

If there's one thing worse than Roger Waters, it sure isn't The Like!