Certain sounds get stamped on the folds of your brain. Usually when you're, like, 15. Once it happens you have a kind of automatic response. Part Pavlovian slobber, part comfort-food reaching-for-the-ketchup. DC's the Opposite Sex could probably be issued a citation for ripping off mid-1980s Echo and the Bunnymen, at least the singer could. There's a simple insistence to this riff. It's nowhere near as powerful or moving as the band seems to think it is, based on their ecstatic bashing attack. But in neanderthal repetition it acquires a kind of deep authority. This record came out in September. It's not even three months old, but it could practically be 25 years old. There is a meaningless instrumental bridge about three-quarters of the way through. I wish they'd skipped that. Still, more bands should abuse stereo chorus and space-boy/Cats make-up.

"Frozen Heart/Frozen Mind" - the Opposite Sex