"Wildewoman" – 4:11
"Turn It Around" – 3:28
"Go Home" – 3:19
"Hey, Doreen" – 4:41
"Tempest" – 4:09 (Laessig/Molad/Wolfe)
"Nothing Ordinary" – 3:01
"Two of Us on the Run" – 4:35
"Until We Get There" – 3:28 (Laessig/Molad/Wolfe)
"Don't Just Sit There" – 3:51
"Monsters" – 3:29
"How Loud Your Heart Gets" – 5:38

You know how great pop music can make your heart swell to the point where it feels like it's fit to explode? How it can take a familiar melody and twist it into a different shape, conjuring magic from a few simple well worn chords?

Brooklyn five piece Lucius are students of great pop, and on the evidence of Wildewoman, they are quick learners. It is rare to hear a debut album that demonstrates so vividly and with such an intuitive understanding exactly what it takes to write a great pop song – Lucius have served up a veritable feast of stellar tunes that lodge in the brain after a couple of listens and stubbornly refuse to leave.

Odds are you will be humming songs like 'Turn It Around' and 'Nothing Ordinary' without even realising it for days to come – these are songs that cannot be unheard; big, brash stomping slices of pop brilliance.

They take the girl group pop of the 60s, the Phil Spector 'Wall of Sound', and give it a fresh lick of paint, coming up with something that sounds very contemporary, very now. Unlike other acts in love with the music of this era, Lucius don't attempt to meticulously recreate the authentic sounds of their influences, striving more for the feel; the timeless, joyous melodies at the heart of that golden era for pop music.

Title track and opener 'Wildewoman' is a perfect example of this; a naggingly familiar melody that explodes into a huge chorus, with singers Jess Wolfe & Holly Laessig harmonising to telling effect. Wolfe and Laessig dovetail perfectly on all these tracks – they both possess huge voices and their harmonies deliver the killer punch time and time again, even on the more subdued tracks like 'Go Home'.

But it's the brasher numbers like the hook laden 'Hey Doreen' and the percussion heavy 'Nothing Ordinary' that are sure to be the big crowd pleasers in a live setting.

Can we have more of this please? More music made by people who sound like they actually love what they do and less of the manufactured pap that is currently clogging up the charts and the airwaves.

Wildewoman is river deep, mountain high; the sweetest of treats that demands your attention and devours you with its sheer exuberance. Pop music at its unfettered and sparkling best.

Review by Paul Page | FOUR STARS