Pony Up are the musical manifestation of The Breakfast Club had they been sharing detention in a music school. They look dishevelled, they have the amount of attitude one might expect from The Breeders, yet they deal in sweet, Canadian indie. Mournful songs, references to literary classics and songs about animals, Pony Up cover it all. Consider this album akin to a high school diary on public view. The four girl troupe offer up a tomboy like representation of their world and wont take any crap from anyone.

The vocals are the roughest kind of pure that you can imagine, two layers making happy harmony all sitting on an ambling bass line. This is the formula that is often deployed and certainly works for most of Pony Up’s songs, gradual build up, the lyrics unfolding the story all the way through to up tempo chorus is the trick that is evident in tracks such as ‘What's Free Is Yours.’

The album isn’t quite a full bodied, holistic piece. Dipping in and out of it, taking only the tracks that you want is how it can best be enjoyed. The flow of the album doesn’t quite sit right to enjoy it as one which is a shame because there are some fantastic songs to behold. Stand out songs are the lead single, ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Is That They Die)’ and the achingly poignant and heartfelt ‘Dance For Me’ which features the interpretation of Fanny Hill’s, ‘Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure,’ borrowing the poetic line “the parting of the double ruby pout of his lips seemed to exhale an air sweeter than it drew in, oh, what does it cost me to refrain the so tempted kiss.”

Pony Up are the brats from school who looked up to Camera Obscura and Of Montreal in 6th form and this is demonstrated best in ‘Lines Bleed,’ a suitably brazen album closer that reminds you that a repeat listen is certainly merited but only when the mood suits.

Review by James Ainsworth
www.ponyup.ca / www.laughingoutlaw.com.au