Gone are the grey days and the long winter, finally Me and the Bees have a new record out, Menos mal. Fifteen warm songs that rarely go beyond the two minute mark and that get under your skin making you feel like summer will never end. With this, their third LP, the band consolidates their power trio line up, expanded into a quartet with the regular collaboration by Guille Caballero (Els Surfing Sirles, Joan Colomo), and it keeps the band at the forefront of the Spanish pop scene. Me and the Bees are still committed to show us all that they are the queens of melody, the archeologists of the perfect song, the magic harmony, the immediate chorus. If their two previous efforts (Fuerza bien and Mundo fatal) already marveled everyone with their amazing ease at creating brilliant pop music, Menos mal finds them following the same path with a single goal: having a good time themselves while making our lives happier. It's one of those records that draw a smile in your face with indelible ink. Already from the initial chords of "Feel Good", you will discover that Me and the Bees don't beat about the bush and embrace everyday life steering away from bombastic artificiality, a kind of pop hedonism that makes them win time after time. All of it letting the voices flow with sheer freedom while Esther, Carlos and Verónica interchange vocal roles with heavenly results. Think of all those 60's household names, from The Supremes to Smokey Robinson, from the Beach Boys to The Byrds, and add to them the noise of the 90's. Me and the Bees' cocktail captures the best girl-bands and 60's pop tradition and marries it off with the indie school exemplified by Pavement. The result is a filler-free album where any song would make a worthy single. Just pick a random tune and you have a winner: the danceable solo of "True Bypass", the chorus turned into a song in "21, 32, 45, 69", the tremendous ending of "I'm On Fire" or the wonderful, naïve tenderness of "If You" or "Spinnin'", where Inés Martínez de Albornoz (Las Perras del Infierno, La Célula Durmiente) lends a hand with the backing vocals. If they were aiming for a pop record that matters, they have certainly hit the spot with Menos mal