Motobunny’s eponymous debut (Rusty Knuckles Music) conjures a landscape dotted with throwback biker references and allusions to the garage-punk scene from which most of its members came, but never builds on that foundation. It’s radio-friendly, but also thin. The voices of co-frontwomen Christa Collins and Nicole Laurenne blend nicely throughout, but are part of a mid-tempo morass of 12 almost indistinguishable songs. The main melodic work is split between Laurenne’s keys, which drift too often into the realm of carnival organ, and the thinly recorded sixth generation MC5 guitars from Michael Johnny Walker, who seems content to regurgitate cliche. The tightly gridded and tightly wound rhythm section is the biggest weakness; if that loosened a little more, “Apocalypse Twist” or “You’re Killing Me” could be dancefloor monsters in spite of other rote elements.

Lyrically, Motobunny feels bored. Teenage themes are sung from the perspective of fully grown women without an acknowledgement of the gap, while standard rock tropes are delivered without anything that sounds personal or fresh. The album doesn’t even have a sense of humor. For instance, “Shake Me” has the strongest guitar riff on the album but undercuts that catchiness with the annoying chorus of “Shake me like a milkshake, baby. Squeeze me till my heart is empty.” An upping of Motobunny’s double-entendre game would help immeasurably. “Let’s Go Out” is hollow seduction, with descriptions of what they’re wearing purred and snarled—at one point in a faux-cheerleader chant—but never giving the impression they’re going downtown for a reason.

There are some high points where slight changes in the sound world make a big difference. The pub-rock horns on “Red Rover” give its catchy hook a buoyancy that helps to overlook the corny mixed metaphor in the lyric. The throbbing, smoldering “Drown” is a rare moment where Ryk Collins’ bass and Jay Lien’s drums let some air in and play together with a real swing.

Motobunny is a well-oiled machine that never quite puts the throttle all the way down. The switchblade in its boot is a comb and there’s never any doubt they follow applicable traffic laws: never too fast, never really reckless, and always concerned with being liked. A wink and a devil-may-care attitude would have gone a long way.