Happy Birthday :: "Girls FM"

I think we can all agree we've let this lo-fi, glo-fi, surf-rock, beach comber, reverb-drenched thing go a little too far. We gave it a long leash because, well, we didn't have any better ideas and we're not exactly taste-makers so much as we are weathervanes. And now we're being ripped along with the breeze of a storm we didn't see coming inasmuch as we also allowed it to form. We are also lost in our analogies.

And then, along comes the innocuously-titled Happy Birthday, a recent signee to Sub Pop. Picture the happy medium between the youthful solipsism of The Drums, the garage-rock obviousness of Surfer Blood and maybe the 1970s fun of Free Energy. The shabby guitar work recalls something unpolished and winning, and yet the shimmering "Everyone's Going Surfing," chorus will stick in your head like a piece of used up Juicy Fruit gum, spat from a passing Schwinn Cruiser bicycle. Just try to get it out.

Listen :: Happy Birthday - "Girls FM"

[Elevator] First Rate People :: "Girls' Night"

Indie rock has undeniably been stumbling towards having some hints of hip-hop influences. Perhaps it began with Matt and Kim's "Daylight," only to continue with Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is The Move," and buoyed by Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks." Hell, even, The Big Pink's "Dominos" could have been turned into a slow-ride hip-hop cut. So it is no surprise that Ontario's First Rate People have churned out a bouncy, ebullient summer jam, "Girls' Night." The boy-girl vocals operate on different planes but eventually overlap, again and again, like two people having unrelated, and yet topically similar phone conversations in an airport lounge. The verses, a cold-medicine yip delivery, find themselves advancing behind picked guitars, whirring keyboards and a surprisingly layered arrangement. Hip-hop or not, "Girls' Night" is enough head-nod to break your neck off.

Listen :: First Rate People - "Girls' Night"

Shout Out Louds :: "Fall Hard" [Video]

We posted new Shout Out Louds cut, "Walls" a few weeks back. It clearly wasn't going to be the first single. With a flurry of press releases today, the band officially returned a video for first single, "Fall Hard" from the band's third LP, Work, due on February 23. "Fall Hard" is a horn-infused, high-hat-heavy, boy-girl racer. The threat of the chorus, "And if you fall hard/I fall harder," is certainly a bit of mutually assured destruction. Lead-singer, Adam Olenius looks a little worse for wear, but intentionally so. Call it exactly what we need for the warmest part of the winter.

Shout Out Louds - Fall Hard from Merge Records on Vimeo.

On The List :: The Joy Formidable @ Union Hall [1.11.10]

In a sleepy section of Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, The Joy Formidable are flooding a basement with a wall of noise. The room is packed, a guest-list stuffed, much buzzed show; only their fourth in the US. From the opening chords of album and set opener, "The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade," it is easy to see why. Vocalist Ritzy Bryan is a sprite of energy, equal parts Emily Haines, Courtney Love and Karen O. With bangs cut at an aggressive straight-line and a shock of blond hair, Byran stares blankly, almost possessed through the opening tones of "Cradle," the night's second song, before exploding into the verse.

Undeniably, the night's best moments come near the beginning and at the very end. The set loses its mandate in the middle, though Bryan and bassist Rhydian Dafydd never lose their edge. Deeper cuts from the band's seminal debut, A Balloon Called Moaning, fill the middle of the set. Even at their most middling, there is something about this music, parts shoegaze, parts garage-rock that moves the crowd to bounce, clap and cheer along. The band, of course, saves its best for last.

Motoring through "Austere," we are left the the crashing and intensely melodic "Whirring." A yuppie to my 12 o'clock whispers in his girlfriend's ear, "This is their big radio single." She nods knowingly. She has no idea. The Joy Formidable, twenty rows toward the front thank us before stomping into the opening chords. The song will end with a thrashing breakdown, leaving the crowd wrecked and Bryan's guitar beyond repair. As the band returns for an encore, Bryan fiddling around with her equipment for a minute before sheepishly apologizing because her guitar simply won't play. This is much more than a basement band, willing to break themselves to achieve something larger, and next time you see them it will not be in a room this small.

Listen :: The Joy Formidable - "Cradle"

On The List :: Passion Pit @ Terminal 5 [1.8.10]

Gigantic LED screens lit the stage as Passion Pit took the stage with entrance music pounding through the speakers, an evolutionary gesture. The crowd, a mixture of hardened hipsters with their battle stories and tweens with tickets bought on parental credit cards, lost their collective minds in that cocktail of excitement and uncertain celebrity usually associated with mid-level professional athletes and reality television stars. Passion Pit, the kids from Boston with that independent EP turned Columbia Records LP, proved as magnanimous as confident in their pose, saying something unspoken like, "Dear 3,000 people, thanks for buying tickets to see us. Appreciate it. Now we're going to light this place up, okay?"

For a band who little more than 18 months ago was playing their now famed residency at Pianos, filling the joint at Terminal 5 could have been nothing more than surreal. As if paying homage to their humble beginnings, the band opened with "I've Got Your Number," the lead-track from their self-released EP Chunk of Change. The crowd appeared clocked in on the band's catalogue, words memorized and movement ready. The band then proceeded to make good on their unspoken promise, playing "Make Light" as the room turned into a cascading series of flashing, white LED lights.

The set opened in massive character, lagged a bit in the middle, only to find its legs in the home stretch. The band closed the main set with second-single stunner, "Little Secrets," turning the crowd into little bubbles of boiling water, popping to surface as if driven by something non-negotiably elemental. After a well deserved encore, Passion Pit returned with "Eyes Like Candles," an explosive cover of The Cranberries' "Dreams," acting as the nights' most unexpectedly pleasant moment; before closing with "Sleepyhead." As the floor turned into an undulating mass of clapping, stomping and jumping, Michael Angelekos stormed around the front of the stage. This was nothing like band who played the city those short months ago; turned into a rapidly growing, hungry animal. As the lights swam around the stage, you wouldn't want to forget where they had been but it was far scarier to think about where this band could be going.

Listen :: Passion Pit - "To Kingdom Come" [Artwork Remix]

Rogue Wave :: "Good Morning"

Last we left Zach Rogue of Rogue Wave, he was in a Zune commercial talking about global warming in the lyrics of "Lake Michigan." I immediately put it on a mixtape and sent it to someone in Montana. Since then, the Zune has completely failed, the Copenhagen summit was a sort-of-failure, and I've sent six or seven more mixtapes to various zip codes around the continental United States.

Of course, Zach Rogue isn't standing still and he won't be a part of three maybe-blighted narratives (see above). The opening moments of "Good Morning" showcase packaged drums and a shabby guitar riff before exploding into something more bombastic. This isn't the least bit organic. By the time Rogue is charging into the chorus, the guitars are buzzing and his vocal is (oh my God, really?) auto-tuned. And yet, the lite power-pop tones are the same charming melodies that showed up on Rogue's first two records. "Good Morning" is a grower, repeating the mantra, "the future, the future," through the bridge. I suspect Zach Rogue would rather take us somewhere vaguely uncomfortable and new than fail in his place.

Listen :: Rogue Wave - "Good Morning"

Northern Portrait :: "Favorite Moment"

Northern Portrait are guilty of being a little overdone as a band. Any lyric that presupposes to understand "your new favorite moment, your new favorite time," is stretching the limits of superlatives as we know them. This does not mention its presupposition that exaggeration for the sake of effect is acceptable, a cultural concept that went out of style sometime in 1996 when Alicia Silverstone had "the best time ever" in Clueless.

But perhaps we can be a little cynical. And in an increasingly relativist society, who I am to call anyone "overdone?" My criticism alone is overdone (see above, everywhere). I reflect. It precisely at this moment that the sonic love-child of The Cure and The Lucksmiths explodes out of the speakers and "Favorite Moment" becomes exactly that - your new favorite moment. Shimmering and ebullient, Northern Portrait have crafted something that explodes cynicism with all the regret of a safe-cracker blowing a safe. We are, for the moment, open and grateful for it.

Listen :: Northern Portrait - "Favorite Moment"