Father, Son, Holy Ghost

It's always a treat to hear a talented young band swing for the fences. Newly expanded from the core duo of singer-songwriter Christopher Owens and his multi-instrumentalist foil JR White to a full five-piece band, San Francisco's Girls leave the minor leagues behind for one of the most self-confident and immediately likeable albums of 2011. And it's not just a matter of tidying up the sound a bit, either: unapologetically mainstream-sounding songs like "Saying I Love You" and "Magic" genuinely wouldn't sound out of place on an adventurous classic rock radio station's playlist, if only such a thing existed. Interestingly, the songs have gotten so much better -- both more tuneful and more artfully arranged -- that now it's much easier to see Owens' much-vaunted eclecticism, which was concealed by the homemade sound of 2009's Album. The higher level of professionalism here allows his cheeky lifts -- like the way "Die" cribs from Deep Purple's classic dashboard pounder "Highway Star" -- to shine. First single "Vomit" even uses a favorite old '70s FM rock trope, the bluesy female backing vocal, at the song's climax, while "Just A Song" features some impressively dexterous nylon-string classical guitar playing from Owens. And crucially, all of this baby-boomer-era songcraft is presented with a complete lack of self-protective hipster irony: they've made a straight-up pop album simply because they wanted to.