The Pattern

With the covers of both Rolling Stone and Spin trumpeting the return of rock and roll, readers might begin to wonder: How many guitar-playing, garage-rocking, skinny white hipsters does the world really need? Exactly five, if that skinny white collective is the Pattern, which recently has emerged as the genre’s West Coast delegate.

The Pattern boasts ex-members of the PeeChees, Nuisance, and the Cuts, and these veterans put their impressive résumés to good use by following a simple design: Take two growling, sweaty guitars, weave them together with bounding bass lines and frantic drums, then cover the noise with sexy, hiccuping vocals.

This mix comes together most successfully on the album’s opener, “Fragile Awareness,” which delivers a catchy vocal melody and short-but-sweet solos. “Mary’s Sister” is a similarly sassy number that combines bluesy guitars with background screams. If every song on this album were as strong as these two, Real Feelness would be stellar. But even with some simplistic lyrics and nothing-new melodies, the album is still immensely satisfying.