In all that black-and-white Beatles footage, there are the mop tops, alighting from airplanes and ducking out of limos into a horde of screaming teenage females. Back then, the girls could best hope to buy Fab Four dolls and lunch boxes. But what if a quartet of starstruck lasses picked up Rickenbackers and drumsticks to rock their own sock party, circa 1964?

That’s the pitch behind the sophomore album from L.A.’s the Like, daughters of record-biz dudes who have dropped the dewy folk jangliness of their debut for punchy protopop. With help from Mark Ronson and a couple of Dap-Kings (drummer Homer Steinweiss adds giddyap), Release Me is the most exacting, bobby-pin-perfect re-creation of the Kennedy era since Don Draper’s first booty call. However, as with Mad Men, the success lies not in the spot-on palette and costuming; there’s fantastic writing happening here. So, yeah, the rhythm sections snap and hop in crisp analog mono; “He’s Not a Boy” nicks the crackling fuzz riff from George Harrison’s “Think for Yourself”; and “Square One” jumps with McCartneyesque bass line à la “I Saw Her Standing There.” It’s Elizabeth “Z” Berg’s busy vocal melodies that flit, dip and soar as well as those of—and we don’t make this comparison wantonly—you know who.

Girl band....it's a bitch