If 4 Bonjour’s Parties were pound puppies, you’d be hard-pressed picking out which one to take home with you. There’s the lead vocalists, Koji Ueno and Ayumu Haitani, with their big floppy ears and stickered suitcases full of glockens, bongos, rap tops and ‘noise’. Don’t forget Daisuke Kurihara, with his glossy locks and beatific bass-playing. Yukiko Hamada and Tomomi Shikano? Stars in their eyes, wind instruments under their arms. Masashi Tabei prefers snaps, sax, and Indian curry. Nature and nekos are the guitar player’s favourites. With such an adorable assemblage, it’s no wonder that what we hear is cotton-candy pop, described by them as “sweet, sometimes drowsy.”

Just like lying in the sun for too long, which puppies are apt to do. If it sounds too cute for words, it is. But there’s a musical complexity, particularly in the crescendo of tracks like Tap Tap, that hints at their intense technical ability and patchworked roots, with influences cited like Belle & Sebastian, clue to kalo, Animal Collective and even Nirvana.

If there’s some adolescent angst in there somewhere, it certainly wasn’t in evidence when they toured Australia recently under Her Space Holiday for Popfrenzy … although the hand-clapping that closed the show was certainly charmingly childish. So in the end, you’ll take the whole seven piece with you, and never look back.