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City Paper, Washington,

D.C. 8/98

While The Inflatablemen might have New Wave and new romantic tastes of their own, they generally follow the basic formula of more recent U.K. cover boys Blur, circa Parklife. Clever Blur has always shamelessly slept around sylistically: Manchester baggie, London mod and sychedelia, New Wave’s synths, and more recently, American indie. While the first tune on The Inflatablemen’s four song CD (released by D.C. label, Diversity), "(Introducing) The Bigsby’s," is something akin to the Kinks doing a ‘90’s Brady Bunch theme, they’re not promiscuous at heart.

The Philly band is mainly entranced with the New Wave redux section of Blur’s lexicon, with its synths and square-edged rhythms. They’re plastic swains out on the town, uncomfortable in hand-me-down threads and sweet-talkin’ awkwardly with ready-made pick-up lines.

(202)667-7960. (John Dugan)