If I hadn’t already read about the ages of the two girls from Smoosh, I wouldn’t have thought of it from their music. After all, there are dozens of singers who affect a girlish register and lots of bands that take a rudimentary approach to their songwriting. There’s nothing here that screams out that this is the work of an 11 year old and a 9 year old.

Smoosh’s debut album She’s Like Electric is quite a revelation to me in terms of just how sophisticated the “tween” generation has become.

When I was in my last year of high school, I had the good fortune to “manage” a band consisting of Grade Six kids, so I shouldn’t be surprised at the musical proficiency on display here. And anyone who’s seen School of Rock should know that the kids are most definitely alright when it comes to musical chops.

But the style of music we’re talking about here is the not the Matchbox 20 rip-offs the 11 year olds of 1998 were producing. Nor is it the Jack Black-led rock pastiche of 2003. It’s a unique punky blast of energy that borrows more from Le Tigre or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs than from what 11 year old girls listened to in my day (Salt ‘n’ Pepa mostly). Maybe I’m just judging them on my own poor childhood musical taste. After all, I didn’t have the good fortune to grow up in Seattle or learn drums from a member of Death Cab For Cutie.

The important thing to remember, and in the midst of all the hype it will be hard to remember, is that this music stands on its own. It could have been recorded by anarchists in New York in 1978. It could have been recorded by revisionist hipsters in 2002. This is music that has been floating around in the ether waiting for the right vessel.

And that’s no disrespect to Smoosh. They bring absolutely everything they have to their music and there is a striking individuality to their sound. I remember describing a live show by The Grates as “teenage girls dancing around in their bedroom” and the same innocent exuberance is there in every note of She’s Like Electric

In fact, maybe the only place where age is an issue is in the delicious irony of “Rad”’s assertion of independence coming from a girl whose dad has to drive her to the movies.

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