There’s been a fair bit of blog buzz from LA about Jail Weddings, and not just because it’s a shit-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that GREAT name for a band. More out of curiosity than anything, I got hold of their Inconvenient Dreams mini-album (out 30th Nov over here), but I’ve had it on – loudly – at least once a day ever since.

As a brief (and pretty lazy) introduction, Jail Weddings are essentially a dirty Polyphonic Spree with a love of Berry Gordy, a tatooed and badly-behaved congregation of many parts, making a motown-y, Spector-ish racket that’s distinctly Los Angeles, wide-eyed and in thrall to its forebears, but dressing and talking like its peers. A twitchy and mesmerising Hollywood-based Glasvegas if you like, or a 1950s Distillers. Wait, neither of them sound as good as I meant to – let’s start again.

Basically, having spun through this one more than a few times now, I’m still hearing stuff I love in here – Mekons, Spector, Ronnettes, Arcade Fire, Springsteen – but the more I listen to it, the more I get the feeling it’s the soundtrack to the noir-est of all Chandler novels that never got made into a film. It’s like it fell straight off the silverest of screens, and it’s so rich and velvety and filling it should come with a packet of Rennie.

From the opening jangles of ‘Cheat On Your New Lover With Me’ – which may just be the best opening track for a wedding disco of all time – right through to the last line of the final track ‘I Am Fucking Crazy’ (”And now that you know, what are you going to do?“), it’s imaginative, evocative, and a flat-out great time from top to bottom. Grand, grand stuff.