The first song on The Raveonettes’ debut album, Chain Gang of Love, concludes its last verse with the lines “Girl where were you on that day/ when hearts were handed out/ and young girls/ found pretty lover boys.” The Raveonettes, a righteously cool Danish boy/girl duo, are trying to make this question irrelevant. The musical purpose of band members Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo is to take us back to that time when music was light but driving—when it wasn’t a crime to write about escape and silliness. Chain Gang of Love is a slice of British invasion from before the Beatles grew beards.

If you miss the old days when songs were all about boys and girls holding hands or dancing, then The Raveonettes feel your pain. They do, however, sex it up a little bit. “Little Animal” is directly descendent of The Troggs’ early ’60s hit “A Girl Like You,” except for the fact that it starts “My girl is a little animal/ she always wants to fuck.” “Little Animal” is the best song on the album, a kind of homage to all that is great about your parents’ old ’60s records. It crackles and pops in a way reminiscent of a grainy vinyl recording. “Little Animal” is the only song on Chain Gang of Love that completely captures the atmosphere that Wagner and Foo are going for, though the others are a lot of fun regardless.

The first song on the album, “Remember,” is not the real beginning of the album, but sort of a preface, as it tries to get listeners to look into the past and feel nostalgic, happy and young. “Remember when the heat could/ knock you off your feet,” goes the chorus. And the dense guitars and chanting of the lines “Come on/ Make it right,” make you interested in hearing more. If there’s one thing The Raveonettes understand, it’s how to come in with a bang.

After “Remember,” they dive right into a sea of retro and don’t look back. What makes “Little Animal” and other songs on the album feel so smooth is the sound of the backing vocals. On many songs, Foo and Wagner sing together, while on “Little Animal” and the undeniable “Chain Gang of Love,” Foo sticks to the background with “Hoo Hoos” and “Huhs” that are a lot more intriguing than they seem. The first single from the album, “That Great Love Sound,” is your ideal throwaway single. It is not the best song that The Raveonettes have to offer, but it is the one that first-time listeners are going to come away singing. With lyrics like “I’m love tornado struck/ I don’t know what to do,” it’s more Annette Funicello than Paul McCartney, but it’s not a bad song to warm up with.

“Noisy Summer” is next, and finishes what “That Great Love Sound” started with a lot more flair and sex. “Let’s Rave On” is where the album really kicks, and it makes you realize that lyrics don’t count all that much. It is a party anthem lost in time, celebrating the youths of people who aren’t young anymore. All that, and it can make you chant “Know my heart’s black ’cause I gotta go” until the sun comes up.

The next song, “The Love Gang,” mocks early ’60s style as much as it embraces it, combining wide-eyed innocence with references to dangerous sexual activity. Unfortunately, the melody comes off as a little too Grease to be as cool as the rest of Chain Gang of Lave. “Dirty Eyes (Sex Don’t Sell),” track number six, is the last song on the album you may want to skip. And that really isn’t so bad, considering that most of the songs are over before you can even really think about them (another thing we are reminded to miss about 1960s music).

The rest of the album sticks in your mind. “Love Can Destroy Everything” is a great goth-sounding song title for a melancholy slow-dance number, and “Heartbreak Stroll” bursts out of that and moves too quickly to let you get to know it too well. Still, it drives deep into your head so you don’t care and fittingly ends with the line, “I gotta go home and sleep it off.” Next comes “Little Animal,” and I must admit that whenever I heard this song while trying to write this review, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Chain Gang of Love is a remarkable achievement if only for this song, whose warmth transplants the listener to another place and time. And it only makes things better that the lyrics are somewhat strange and nonsensical. Each strum of the guitar trembles through the amplifier to turn feedback into magic.

“Untamed Girls” is a little disappointingly new and clean-sounding following “Little Animal,” but the intensity of the Beach Boys riffs drive the song and make it pop. The title track is next, and it is the silliest, obviously poking fun at the whole genre they’re mimicking. It’s hard to stop yourself from singing the line, “I’m a jailbird baby/ wasting my time.” Throughout the song, the backing vocals repeat “HUH,” and it all makes for a pretty catchy send-up of “Working in the Coal Mine.”

“The Truth About Johnny” is similar to “Dirty Eyes (Sex Don’t Sell),” but the squealing, tremolo-soaked guitar choruses make it more interesting. It also contains the funniest lyrics on the album: “That’s when I learned/ with cigarette in mouth/ dating prostitutes/ was alright now.” “The Truth About Johnny” is the closest the album gets to becoming psychedelic as it falls apart into spacious echoes at the end.

“New York Was Great” is the last song on the album, and it fits that role perfectly. It can be taken as sort of a comedown at the end of the party, an afterthought, as Foo and Wagner chant “And in bars drunk we knew it all.” This song brings us full circle. Chain Gang of Love ends as it started, with a semi-serious look into the past, more of a comment on the album than a part of it. Just as “Remember” ended with an explosive guitar and the repetition of “Come on/ Make it right,” “New York Was Great” explodes with three of the best words I’ve heard conclude an album in a long time: “What a trip.”