What a fantastic little dose of out-and-out pop this is! The Handbag Memoirs is a mere six-song, twenty minute EP, offering us a taste of this Detroit quartet's upcoming full-length debut, What Do the American Girls Have..., due later this year. It’s also one of the best things I’ve heard in quite a while.

The band, a vehicle for songwriter Casimer Pascal, mines much the same territory as their Detroit brethren The Waxwings -- harmony-drenched sixties-style pop, borrowing heavily from the Beach Boys, Zombies and Donovan, among others. Pascal’s soft falsetto vocals are the group's secret weapon. His melodies are at once catchy and unpredictable -- just when you think you’ve heard the hook, he’ll hit you with something even catchier. Take the disc’s opener, "The Bronze Beach Boys (Come On Let’s Go)"; you'll be bobbing your head along with the chorus's pulsing handclaps when Pascal interrupts everything with a Frankie Valli-esque wail that'll catch you completely off guard. But the second time around, now that you know it’s coming, it'll be all you can do to wait for it. Delicately layered instrumentation provides a sturdy foundation: organ, horns, bells and strings, all captured in a crisp and inventive production job (once again courtesy of Casimer Pascal).

At its weakest moments, Pas/Cal sounds like the best of If You’re Feeling Sinister-era Belle and Sebastian. That’s not necessarily a dis, but Pas/cal blends its influences so well elsewhere -- as in the smashing closer, "This Ain’t For Everyone" -- that it’s a bit disappointing when a song like "I’d Bet My Life That You Bet Your Life" sounds so derivative, with coy, overly-hip lyrics like "Was it '74 / Was it summer or fall / was it corduroy, linen, or wool?" Thankfully, the rest of the disc hides its contemporary influences well enough that the song sounds more like an exception than a rule. We probably won't know for certain 'til the full-length comes out.

If the album sounds anything like "This Ain’t For Everyone", you just might find me singing Pas/Cal's praises for the rest of the year. This song is the best of the bunch in terms of lyrics, music and production; opening with a quiet strum of the guitar and sheepish vocals, and ultimately ending with a near-anthemic climax, it's a convocation for all the die-hards out there (or, as Rocket from the Crypt's John Reis likes to call 'em, the Lifers). Initially, it serves as a dialog with today’s jaded indie rock set, as evidenced by the lines, "This ain’t for everyone / So feel free to leave whenever you want / But whomever’s here to stay / Stay in your seats and let the others go away." You can imagine the group playing the song in a half-filled bar, to a crowd that’s only there to see their friends' bands. Then, halfway through the tune, everything turns around: this ain’t about the audience -- this is about a band that’s more than a hobby. "I fell apart in a restaurant / I fell apart in a record store / I did some time in a nine-to-five / I’m not gonna stay in my seat no more". The song ends with a crashing refrain of Oh-Las, as if all of the Lifers have picked up the chorus -- and they’re the only ones left in the room.