I was introduced to The Lollies by a well known press officer who sent me one of their singles, 'Channel Heaven'. It was a 7inch that had been put out by a small London label - I fell in love with it. I've always had a soft spot for female singers so when Emma, my friend, told me that the band were looking for someone to put their first album out I jumped at the chance. As well as being incredibly sexy women, and I hope they don't slap me for saying that, I discovered that the songs on the album were equally as good as that original 7inch. 'Channel Heaven' is actually one of the tracks on the album. A meeting with the band soon followed - we did the contract thing and the rest is history.

>> DOWNLOAD FREE LOLLIES TRACK NOW! <<

Previous releases:

Latest extracts:

>> CHANNEL HEAVEN <<

>> SELFISH BOY <<

MAGAZINE / INTERNET REVIEWS

'TASTE' VOTED BEST BAND FOR 2003 IN VOGUE MAGAZINE

The Lollies - Taste
No RipCord
Like this review was ever going to be anything but positive. The Coral's self-titled effort may have caught the eye of the critics but when it comes to the finest debut album of 2002, the Lollies unreservedly get my crooked grin of approval.

Where to start? Opening track Flavour Of The Week berates the current tread of "selling out" in indie bands. The point being, if you are going to do it, do it properly: "It's part of our masterplan/to sip champagne on a yacht like Duran Duran" and whatever can they mean by "Fuck the charts, we'll make millions/selling mobile phones to the new bohemians"? 2001 single Channel Heaven also makes a welcome appearance. An NME review said that it would be loved by "long haired indie boys who read French poetry and think football ghastly". Well, I ain't got long hair, ain't ever read French poetry and love Football with a passion bordering on mental illness. I still think it's a brilliant song, so join me in waving two fingers to press dinosaurs.

The key to everything is that while one minute they have you crying into your beer, the next they'll have you jumping around spilling said beer all over your mate/significant other/psychopathic stranger. The best example of the former is Imaginary Boyfriend ("If I had a dollar for every time you say/sorry but I don't think about you that way"), the sound of the Smiths if Morrissey had been born XX. For the latter; try Office Romance - Da Do Ron Ron mashed together with the modern complexities of meeting "the corporate Clark Gable" - or Jonestown Mascara, the best song ever to include the word "peroxide". Really. I could go on. I could mention killer horn riffs, wild west pianos and a bonus track that sounds like New Order in some alternative dimension. But all I really need to say is: there's not a duff track here. Go on, you don't need to take yourself that seriously all the time.

Kudos also for 2002's most well observed line: "Kissing leads to sex/like pot leads to heroin". Sweetness and bitterness aren't always so far apart. 9/10
Reviewed By Peter Mattinson - http://www.noripcord.co.uk

The Lollies – Taste
Teletext Q Reviews
So this Yank bird and Canadian girl who fetch up in England recruit token bloke drummer and make an album of witty fun and flippant fem-pop par excellence.
New Yorker Kate St.Claire and Canadian Jane Mountain specialise in faux-naïve spurts of punky pop that recall Talulah Gosh, The Flatmates and original queens of the genre the Shangri-Las.

Tracks like ‘Flavah Of The Week’ and ‘Call The Girls’ are 60’s pure pop with a cool contemporary twist, and if you don’t love ‘Office Romance’, you have no pulse.
John Earls

The Lollies – Taste
Rock Sound
An aptly-named band, as this is so sweet it could seriously fuck up a passing diabetic at 20 paces. If you haven’t got a sweet tooth for girlie pop this could make you puke, but if the sound of those 60’s girl group songs played with a Helen Love post-punk feeling tickles your fancy, this should have you licking your lips and scribbling The Lollies on your list to Santa. Apparently they started ‘as a drunken joke’ and have definitely kept that vibe. This could’ve been recorded in a bedroom in an hour, and I hope it was because that’s what real rock ‘n’ roll is all about. Simple, basic, slightly insane, this is fluffy and kitsch but most definitely fun, and beats the crap out of most bands taking themselves far too seriously on music television.
Paul Raggity

The Lollies – Taste
Uncut Magazine
Multi-national quartet give it some serious stick
They may boast a male drummer, but The Lollies – two Canadians, a New Yorker and an Essex babe – are girl-group descendants. Taste is pure sherbet-dipped Sex In The City sass, where The Waitresses meet The Ronettes and the fuzz-pop snap of Blondie shares lippy with Elastica.

It’s witty stuff, encompassing bathroom romps – the hilarious ‘Office Romance’ – hip fakers, unattainable boys and the perils of peroxide. It might wear thin towards the end, but reverse out the chromosomes and you have Supergrass in slingbacks.
Rob Hughes

The Lollies – Taste
Q Magazine
A love of The Shangri-Las and their tongues on the fringes of London’s indie scene is the genesis of this wry debut. The US/Canadian band mix choppy guitars, twin-girl vocals with sub-Blur pop. Pity the songs sound more like out-takes from Grease than an arch response to contemporary pop.
Crispin Parry

The Lollies – Taste
The Big Issue
Sixties soul-gal harmonies, dingy disco harmonics, dastardly tunes you just can’t shake off, it’s all lickably good stuff in the world of guitar outfit, The Lollies. As legend has it, the band was formed when Canadian bassist/vocalist Jane Mountain ran into New York singer/guitarist Kate St Clair at a London party. Drunkenly messing with a four-track, the two-some managed to slur their way through a recording which led to a recording contract. That never happens. Does it?
Fellow Canadian Mathew Lazowski was recruited as drummer and The Lollies toured, released a pink single and this month’s fairly brill debut album ‘Taste’. More slinky than sickly. Sweeeet.
Joe Shooman

The Lollies – Taste
Cambridge Evening News

This is utterly, deeply and unrepentantly indie. It is also a brilliant pastiche on the 60’s girl group sound shoved in a tin with Martha and the Muffins. It also contains some lyrics of what can on be described as genius. How about ‘it’s part of our master plan to sip champagne on a yacht like Duran Duran’. Go see them and then if the urge to buy this album does not creep over you I’ll eat my hat.
J.C

The Lollies – Taste
Fused Magazine
A debut album of topical, quirky lyrics from the Canadian/American trio. The tracks are humorous and tell the stories/experiences of the lives of the band so far from the ‘Office Romance’ and the ‘Imaginary Boyfriend’. The music is poppy and will remind you of something that you can’t quite put your finger on (try Ramones and Shangri-La’s). The tunes are all so happy and upbeat that you will hum along and you won’t be able to get them out of your head all day.
Kerry Thomas

INTERVIEW
Guitar Magazine
Brought together by a love of 60’s groups, on their first record, Taste, The Lollies mine a rich seam of impossibly catchy melody lines wrapped up in genres ranging from full-blown rawk to maudlin country ballads. “Melodies, including those played in guitar solos, should always be as simple as possible”, declares the London-born but previous New York-based singer/guitarist Kate St.Claire.

‘I don’t mean “stupid” simple, just accessible – so you can sing along. Styles are like short-cut to a mood….. it’s in the textures and sounds that you use that you can get really complicated.’

To help her in her quest for the perfect textures is a huge collection of stompboxes that truly earns her the title of ‘pedal freak’. While she’s happy to explain the joys of her Dancelectro U2 guitars or her Vox AC30/Marshall combo amps, you know you’re in the presence of a true fanatic when she describes her live pedal set up.

‘OK, in order; an Arion stage tuner, MXR Distortion Plus, a Russian Big Muff – they sound and look better than the American ones – a Dunlop Stereo Tremolo, and old cheesy heavy metal chorus, Boss Super Phaser, Boss DD5 and a Dancelectro slap echo.
“And I need every one of those pedals”, she maintains. “I have a lot of pedal disasters but that just adds to the fun. Unpredictability is great, which is why before I die I will get a Copicat analogue tape delay.”

That kind of set-up throws the whole notion of The Lollies being this cute, sweet band right out of the nearest window – and St Claire claims that the band has become heavier over time. “People forget that girl groups just don’t mean The Shangri-La’s, but also girl garage bands. I keep putting AC/DC riffs into songs and, sooner or later, people are going to realise that we’re this little death machine!”

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