The School

The School, The Duchess, York, June 7

IF you are young, The School can teach you a thing or two about perky summer pop.

If you are older, you will say the Cardiff eight-piece band have learned their lessons well, absorbing musical DNA from the Sixties’ teen dramas through to today’s arch Scottish acts.

However, your reaction to their effervescence will depend on your enthusiasm or lack of it for retro sugar-coated pop with more hooks than a changing room – and a credit list that has handclaps attributed to all eight members.

Your School reporter, for the record, finds it as irresistible as Licc’s ice cream parlour in Back Swinegate: surely the perfect place for one of their promo-video shoots.

Recorded in a converted North Welsh chapel last August, album number two, Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything, releases its sunny rays this week, coinciding with a tour that sends The School to The Duchess on Thursday for their first York show since the City Screen Basement in 2010.

The band have acquired a settled line-up in the interim, led by principal songwriter, keyboard player and singer Liz Hunt, who says: “I think there are a lot more influences than on our debut Loveless Unbeliever because, with the amount of us, we now draw from Sixties’ girl groups to Blondie and The Ramones – with girl singers! – to Camera Obscura and Belle And Sebastian.

The closest comparisons have been made with Camera Obscura, Glasgow indie band fronted by Traceyanne Campbell. “I don’t mind,” says Liz. “It’s great to be compared with them. We were listening to them when we were recording our first and second albums and I was blown away by their last album [2099’s My Maudlin Career]: the level of ambition on there is very inspiring.”“The Primitives are in there as well, who we’ve just been on tour with incidentally.”

Liz has been joined in the songwriting department by acoustic guitarist and percussionist Harri Davidson, a full-time recruit to the line-up between albums, who penned some of the lyrics for lead single Never Thought I’d See The Day and wrote the new record’s “sad one”, It’s Not The Same.

“On this album, the songs are still about boyfriends, girlfriends and making out,” says Liz, whose choice of album title reflects the vicissitudes of young love.

“That title is mainly about me. I’m always Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything – I was even worrying if we could fit it on the sleeve in case it was too long, as I’m such a paranoid person!”

Should you be wondering why they call themselves The School, Liz sort of explains: “It was a while ago now, going back to 2007, but I think it was because I knew there were going to be quite a lot of us in the group, and so we wanted something simple that no-one else had used – well, apart from a Norwegian metal band called The School but they’re not doing a lot now and haven’t objected, though we’re The School UK if anyone asks!

“We also thought The School looks good as a logo, though it’s a bit much to order rulers for the merchandise stall – and there’s no uniform for the band. We just go for a bright, poppy look as the music is shiny and sugary.”

The School scored high marks for their debut album – the wonderfully named Radio Nowhere’s Album of the Year in 2010 – and even Eighties’ Brat Pack screen actress Molly Ringwald is a self-confessed fan. “Apparently she put together a celebrity playlist and had our song All I Wanna Do on there, along with a Camera Obscura song” says Liz. “She said it was sweet and reminded her of being a teenager – the kind of song to hold hands to as you walked through the park.”

Spot on Molly.

THE School play The Duchess, York, on Thursday. Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything is available on Elefant Records from this week.