All the While

Coed sextet Frances's debut full-length All the While carries on the great tradition of pop music that plays with itself, taking the fun parts and discarding the dumb ones, flirting with chaos but always returning to a gloriously catchy, melodic center. It's resolutely childlike, fanciful stuff; but then, Frances are correspondingly serious in their execution, employing whiplash-inducing chord changes, bizarre stylistic touchstones and darker moments that hint at something terrifying lurking behind the swooning strings and oom-pah horns. All the While is a perfectly realized expression of the band's genteel madness. It's experimental pop, dressed up in a top hat and tails.