Garage in ’07? Nah.

Arizona’s Love Me Not’s recorded In Black & White here in Detroit at Jim Diamond’s Ghetto Recorders. The two dudes wear sharp-cut suits, the two girls wear go-go boots, and the record blows by in an agreeable enough but pretty indistinguishable tumble of vintage organ and pep siphoned from 1960s rock ’n’ roll. Things get started with "Move in Tight" — hope you think that seesawing organ line is really the most, because it returns five minutes later to lead you through "Mine." There are a few more like those, brief blasts of fevered rock and R&B with hints of danger thanks to the vocalist Nicole’s supervixen throat tickle. ("It’s just a matter of time/Gonna tow this line/Until he’s mine all mine!") Love Me Nots even offer a spiders-crawling-on-my-face mood piece with "Cry"; it recalls Jefferson Airplane, or at least Mazzy Star. In Black & White has all its references in a row, and it’s pretty fun, which is probably enough for fans of the genre. But the Love Me Nots, like most groups subsidized by the cult of Little Steven’s Underground Garage, are so good at pulling from the a la carte menu of accepted sounds and styles that they never really show us where they are inside the formula. "You got my heart on a chain," Nicole sneers in, uh, "Heart on a Chain." Her ticker’s probably right next to 200 hundred other garage rock hearts, and they’re wearing go-go boots too. It’s all the same organ.

Johnny Loftus is the music editor of Metro Times. Send comments to [email protected].