Sometimes you wonder whether a band's name plays a part in shaping their sound. If these Californians had been the Completely Love or the Fervently Hate, would they have ended up producing something more vivid than cute power-pop? Calling themselves the Like seems to have doomed them to being, well, likable, rather than the kind of group who send your faculties into a spin. This unadvertised warm-up for next month's British tour was good fun, but when singer Z Berg announced that their second album, Release Me, is coming out next month – "so go out and buy it" – it was easy to think of the many more interesting records £10.99 would buy.

Mark Ronson produced Release Me, and his retro imprint was all over the songs unveiled here. Z Berg's guitar twanged like it was 1964, Annie Monroe's organ was an old-school Farfisa and Berg, Monroe and bassist Laena Geronimo produced girl-group vocal harmonies that evoked beehives and Brylcreem. They look like a vintage-chic version of the Shangri-Las, too, with all four women apparently sharing the same bad-girl eyeliner and strong-hold hairspray. Tennessee Thomas's bouffant barely quivered as she played – and she's the kind of drummer who opts for muscular solidity rather than twinkle-fingered wizardry, so her hair's rigidity was impressive.

Their striking look and the fuzzy melodiousness of the likes of He's Not a Boy and Walk of Shame made the first half whizz by. You wondered what act of band democracy landed the thin-voiced Berg with the lead-singer slot, but her sighs gave the Shadow Morton-influenced Narcissus in a Red Dress its sense of vulnerability. Things chugged along happily until the second half, when the novelty wore off and the limitations of a set comprised mainly of rattly tunefulness made you wonder how far the Like can go with this.