Some artists seem just born to entertain. They're not gonna wow you with their musicianship. They're not writing the most stirringly beautiful songs. They're just really freakin' fun. And that pretty much sums up Locksley (MySpace). We've really dug their latest album, Don't Make Me Wait, but we still weren't expecting much. Not that we thought Locksley would be bad. We just kinda figured that they wouldn't give us much reason to endorse their live performance versus just saying, "Locksley's CD is worth picking up." Fortunately, Locksley proved us wrong.

From pretty much the moment they came on stage, we were struggling to keep up with Locksley's energy. These guys burn more calories on stage in a 45-minute set than we do in a full day. And they do it while playing an upbeat, early Beatles-inspired style of music that gets into your brain and sticks with you. That's not to say Locksley was perfect. Their sound certainly lends itself to a little bit of sloppiness, and they're certainly not as polished as a number of other bands we've seen. We decided to forgive them, though, because they're young (all 24, with the exception of bassist Jordan Laz, who's only 18) and we don't think they've peaked. We enjoyed and appreciated that Locksley was reminiscent of other artists we enjoy (The Kinks, The Fratellis and The Stray Cats specifically came to mind during their set) without sounding exactly like other artists, and they clearly have their own personalities on stage.

Sure, there was something a little bit juvenile about Locksley. Maybe it was that we got the impression they'd been rehearsing some of their stage poses in their bedrooms since they were 14 years old. Maybe it was that their sound isn't terribly original, even if it is catchy and listenable. But in spite of those things, or maybe because of them, we enjoyed Locksley a lot more than we'd expected to.

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