Ladies and gentlemen, please switch off your irony detectors. The Exploding Hearts are not tongue-in-cheek punk-pop revivalists, and they aren't postmodern pastiche artists borrowing an abandoned aesthetic for the sake of cultural commentary. From their bright pink and yellow album art, to their shamelessly Sex Pistols-esque poses, The Exploding Hearts make it clear from the outset that they're not too concerned with being taken seriously-- by you or anybody.

At first glance, it would be easy to write off The Exploding Hearts as another retarded pop/punk band that never evolved mentally past the 10th grade. But on their debut full-length, Guitar Romantic, the ridiculous geekdom that comes through the Hearts' "cool" façade like grease through a Big Mac wrapper pays off in spades, as the Portland four-piece cuts right to the energetic heart of punk and power-pop, evoking vintage Soft Boys, The Only Ones, and-- though undoubtedly through sheer coincidence-- The Apples in Stereo's first seven-inches.

The first thing you're likely to notice about Guitar Romantic is the production-- it's clipped-out and fuzzy, burying the VU needle at +3. There's no subtlety to be found here: everything is pushed so far to the front of the mix that the instruments all blend together into a fuzzy two-dimensional sonic image. In this context, it works perfectly-- there's no reason anything here should be anywhere except for at the front. With all the instruments appropriately (or, perhaps, inappropriately) loud, the focus falls squarely on the songs themselves, which is where The Exploding Hearts' namesake becomes all too fitting.

The band wastes no time kicking your ass, either: the opener, "Modern Kicks", is easily one of Guitar Romantic's best tracks, and perfectly exemplifies what makes this band's music so infectious. With its driving rhythm and insanely catchy vocal hook delivered in a bratty faux-English accent, the song plays out like an anthemically poppy and distinctly American incarnation of The Buzzcocks. But Guitar Romantic peaks with "Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades", mining the energetic melodicism of everything from Big Star to Nick Lowe to the misplaced 50s-isms and lobotomized abandon of The Ramones.

There are points throughout Guitar Romantic where parallels could be drawn to The Strokes. And indeed, the two bands seem to be working from a pretty similar tradition. But where The Strokes embody a "cool" that involves preening their hair to make it look like they just woke up, and their music sometimes seems similarly premeditated and self-conscious, The Exploding Hearts simply have no shame. These guys indulge in power-pop like true hedonists, their unmitigated passion for the music negating any shred of the hipness their influences imply. At first, it's confounding that a band with such a keen sense of songcraft would adopt a style aesthetic that combines punk cliché with an L.A. Looks advertisement. But their style, like their sound, comes across as a product of unabashed enthusiasm and near-ridiculous reverence for the music they love.

All this discussion, of course, seems irrelevant when the record's playing. At the end of the day, Guitar Romantic is simply a fucking awesome power-pop record that would've been just as relevant and engaging twenty-five years ago, and will undoubtedly be just as fun twenty-five years down the road. Though it may seem glaringly retro on the surface, The Exploding Hearts have released an album that is, at its core, ageless.

-Matt LeMay, April 8th, 2003