The Klittens - Butter

The second flavourfully-named offering from Amsterdam five-piece The Klittens (following debut project ‘Citrus’), ‘Butter’ is a collection that stands largely at odds with the silky-smoothness of its moniker. Flitting from the bright, jangle-pop hooks of opener ‘Universal Experience’ to the underlying scuzziness of follow up ‘Atlas’, the EP has a ‘kid in a candy shop’ air of gleeful experimentation. Generally, this is rewarded in spades: the multi-layered vocal lines and brass flourishes of the former imbue it with dynamism, even in the track’s final third; but occasionally, the scattergun approach fosters additions that are perhaps too wide a sidestep (as with the warped, radio tuning-like effects on the latter). Elsewhere, the sonic variation continues apace - centrepiece ‘Reading Material’ trots along with a buoyant peppiness, while ‘Eye Contact’ and ‘Traffic Light’ variously employ plucked strings and textured riffs in a manner that respectively recalls fellow European exports Hinds, and indie sleaze blueprints The Strokes. Because nothing on ‘Butter’ is overly polished, the whole package can at times appear slightly haphazardly wrapped, but there’s an overarching sense of fun to its off-kilter fuzz that suggests that actually, this is precisely the point.