One of the most common insults in rock & roll is "He/She can't play," which is usually meant to say that the musician in question can't play in the manner of
Jeff Beck or
Eric Clapton or some other chops-intensive guitar hero. Those who subscribe to this sort of thinking are usually missing the point, as inspired amateurism is at the heart and soul of rock & roll -- listen to "Louie Louie" by
the Kingsmen for proof -- but there is a fine line between being able to throw together three chords with shambolic enthusiasm and pure and simple ineptitude, and
Hotpants Romance live right on the borderline. The Manchester trio's first album,
It's a Heatwave, sounds like the work of a band that would require a few months of intensive rehearsal before they'd be tight enough to record for K Records, and their furious clumsiness lacks the revelatory sense of discovery of
Beat Happening or the irony-free artless abandon of
the Shaggs, to name but two bands who've made far more from lacking rudimentary technical skills. Kate Armitage, Lowri Evans and Laura Skilbeck seem to have some vague notion of how to write a catchy pop song, and there are a few moments in "Hotpants No Chance," "Shake," and "Effin' and Jeffin'" that suggest with time and effort this group might be capable of better things. But the wildly off-key harmonies, the stubborn refusal to play in the same meter, and the way the guitar work goes back and forth between OK and awful leaves one with the disturbing conclusion that
Hotpants Romance are playing this badly on purpose. Everyone needs a gimmick, kids, but this one gets old pretty fast, and when it doesn't carry you all the way through an album that lasts less than 18 minutes, it doesn't bode well for your future. There's nothing wrong with naïve music from someone who really is naïve, but when something this thrown together sounds calculated, something sounds and feels pretty fishy.