Kevin Bronson on February 22nd, 2019

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Ever since they charted a new musical course six years ago, L.A. quartet Dear Boy half sunk their tentacles into Anglophile hearts. With next week’s release of “The Strawberry EP,” the grip with only get tighter.

Their sweetly romantic, gently melancholic albums, reminiscent of first-wave New Wave, glossy post-punk and the Britpop that followed, seem ripped from those sampler CDs that British music mags used to give away. Had they been around in those days, Dear Boy probably would have been candidates for a pull-out poster, too.

The band — vocalist Ben Grey, guitarist Austin Hayman, drummer Keith Cooper and bassist Lucy Lawrence — self-produced their new EP, their third. It got a mix from esteemed producer Tony Hoffer and features appearances from Day Wave, Hazel English and Patrick Spurgeon of Rogue Wave.

With a rolling bass line and an echoing guitar that answers it, “Semester” is the bittersweet remembrance of a lesson learned. Swoon, sway, swallow hard; it’s one for the end credits.

The new performance video was directed by Samuel Bayer.

||| Watch: The video for “Semester”

||| Also: Stream the video for “Love Interest”

||| Live: Dear Boy headline the first night of the KROQ Locals Only Fest at the Teragram Ballroom on March 8. Tickets.

||| Previously: “Love Interest,” “Cold Spell,” “Alluria,” live at Tarfest, “Local Roses,” “Hesitation Waltz,” “Oh So Quiet”