Phases and Stages

The Sweethearts

L.U.V (Mortville) "Luv" was the way girls signing your high school yearbook spelled "love" if they liked you, but not in that way. This local pop-punk quartet gets good mileage out of extending that wonderful, terrible ambiguity into the realm of young-adult romance. The Sweethearts' sound is standard issue buzz-saw punk combined with a nod to the Golden Age of Top 40. It's nothing that hasn't been done before, but they deliver their 11 songs with freshly baked aplomb. The real delineating factor is vocalist Linette Liendo, whose emotive pixie growl crosses Gwen Stefani, Bernadette Peters, and a tank of helium. L.U.V kicks off with "Boys Night Out," a sweet-natured lamentation to a boyfriend who leaves his girl at home to attend a sausage party. Later on, "In the Dark" finds Liendo delivering a hardcore mash note built on bubbly lettered couplets like, "Yeah you're the bad boy on the block; I think I like you 'cuz you're so punk rock." The Sweethearts tackle love gone wrong with the extra-crunchy "Lover's Lane," which features a catchy guy/girl vocal interplay about who's cheating who. "You've been kissing Tina," cries Liendo. "That's really gross!" They may sing a simple song, but the Sweethearts' punk-flavored portrayal of the raw-nerve period between the first broken heart and the onset of cynical scar tissue is positively earnest.