California holds proud its musical tradition of sun soaked, golden sugary pop. Los Angeles' The Little Ones showcase their efforts to uphold this tradition here on their Debut 7 Track EP Sing Song. Unsurprisingly then the Little Ones' sound is heavily reliant on the brilliant conceived vocal harmonies employed by The Beach Boys in their pomp - but thankfully, there are echoes of many other classic pop acts throughout this mildly enjoyable record that at no point do The Little Ones sound like a tribute act. There is tribute and there is homage - The Little Ones fall into the latter category. This is most definitely a good thing.

Opener Let Them Ring The Bells bursts into life with a gush of multi-layered vocals, before settling into an understated descending melody that is pleasant enough. Bass fills and more vocal explosions allow for an opener that if nothing else encourages you to listen on. The more urgent Lovers Who Uncover follows. Simple staccato guitars, and warm sounding keyboards are rife, in a song that works in a rather unspectacular manner. What follows is a downturn. Cha Cha Cha is overworked to the point of desperation. The song lacks clarity and melody, and despite a few moments of exciting instrumentation there isn't enough here to sufficiently paper over the cracks.

So far, so middling then. But this problem continues throughout the record. For every positive, there is a negative, for every good song, a bad one. The Little Ones fail to grab you, as they are just too anonymous to really matter. Yes, there are some moments to savour here, and early single Oh, MJ is a perfect slice of pop that brings together all the snippets of brilliance scattered throughout the record into 3 minutes of perfectly minted pop. But again, what follows is disappointing. Face The Facts lives up to its unimaginative title and is simply by the numbers, autopilot pop that is hard to engage with.

A lack of originality throughout means that the bad outweighs the good. There are slightly more 'take it or leave it' songs here than ones that really leave a lasting impression. Oddly as well, for a band that wear their classic pop influences on their sleeves, many of the songs clock in at three minutes plus, and so the record doesn't breeze by as you might expect from a record of this nature, but instead stumbles along.

The Little Ones do show promise though and this is by no means a record that should be seen as a disaster, rather as a work in progress. Give them time and they may shine.