The M's know exactly what they're doing. Like fellow Chicagoans Urge Overkill, they didn't just stumble onto this rock band thing or think glam would be a good flavor to try out. They sound like they spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting bad-ass swaggering poses, learning the primordial power riffs of every early Kinks song, and memorizing all the juicy bits of the T. Rex catalog. When they name-check the Satellite of Love on "Banishment of Love", you're positive they got it from Lou Reed's Transformer, not Mystery Science Theater 3000. The M's are uncomplicated, catchy and sometimes dumb, but never stupid, overly campy or uninspired.

Basically an expansion of another self-titled EP from 2002, The M's is garage rock-infused glam from heaven. It's all about sexily affected vocals, Keith Richards riffs that even a well-trained chimp could play (and are no less remarkable for it), and creating a perfectly balanced melodic clangor. "Dirty Old Dog" is a simmering blues of the bouncy, jaunty variety. "2 x 2" works wonders with two chords, a few "doo-doo-doo"s and an abrupt ending. "Maggie" shows that you can never go wrong with a well-executed false ending. "Big Baby Bottoms" (what a title!) fluently segues into "Break Our Bones", expediently piling on the decadent, woozy harmonies until they erupt into a full raging chorus of "We're crashing up our car for love!" And I would trade all of these utterly groovy moments for the frenzied, driving "There Is Work", which comes fueled with a perfect "Day Tripper"-by-way-of-"You Really Got Me" guitar riff.

Those who find all of this a bit over-the-top will probably wish the band had stuck to their earlier plan of releasing this material as a series of EPs. Taken together, these twelve songs offer little in the way of variety or breathing space. Even quieter moments with acoustic undercurrents, like the swooning "Riverside", are as theatrical and flamboyant as Bowie or Rufus Wainwright, but not nearly as inimitable or sincere. That may come with time, as the band evolves and experiments. For now, The M's is good glam of the guilty pleasure variety -- you may feel a little sheepish about gobbling it all up at once, but you'll willingly keep coming back to it for all of its simple, transcendent pleasures.