Kept primitive and aggressively lo-fi, songs often hover around the two-minute mark on Lovvers’ new album OCD Go Go Go Girls. The English quartet may be signed to Wichita, home of the Cribs and Bloc Party, but such bratty nuggets point to the recent proto-punk revival. They can sound a bit like Jay Reatard, only with the hooks – and there are some killer hooks – and Shaun Hencher’s sloppy shouts utterly buried. With songs so short and similar, the album blurs into a there-and-gone haze. The almost-title-track “OCD Go Go Girls” is the standout, the lead single, and also the longest at 3:47. Elsewhere there’s the titular Minutemen ode of the laidback instrumental “D. Boon” and the shambling slow burn of “Golden Bars Blue.” Lovvers can seem like they’re trying too hard to not try at all, but it’s about time some Brits answered Times New Viking and Wavves. With The Intelligence, Past Lives, Crime Wave. DOUG WALLEN.

Fri., Nov. 20, 9 p.m., 2009