Occasionally, moments of lucidity burst through the fug that permeates ANBAD Towers, and today the shaft of light that beamed in spelled out the words “Hey, hasn’t there been a lot of laptop-derived music on here recently?”

Well, quite.

Hey, it’s not my fault, OK? ANBAD merely holds up a mirror to musical society, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I’m not going to pretend that I paused for extra thought when I initially heard The Candy Strypers. After spending so many days harping on about how new bands should be pushing envelopes and embracing newness, and other such cobblers, how could I justify featuring a band who makes 12-string jangle pop zapped in from 1966?

Well, quite easily, it turned out, as Hymn The Girl fulfils the ANBAD Criteria that overrules all others: Make A Good Fucking Song. And Hymn The Girl is a good fucking song, whichever way you try to cut it.

There are few things in life as satisfying as a smartly-compiled pop song, which is exactly what this is: the means justifying the end, as it were.

The Candy Strypers are, in so many ways, a product of another time. And sometimes that’s just perfect.

MORE: soundcloud.com/the-candy-strypers