2010 Best of the Early Indie Shop Pop

2010’s got a strong early crop of indie-shop pop. Here are some records we’d recommend from the first two months of the decade.

Alkaline Trio – This Addiction (Heart and Skull/Epitaph)
The stalwart pop-punks return to an indie label after the Epic-released Agony and Irony, and make up for lost time with a new collection that recalls their old ones by capturing the Trio’s trademark: witty wordplay in manic, punchy cuts.

Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch)
The old-time revivalists have been picking up buzz from the NPR crowd lately, and it’s easy to see why. The trio’s back-porch string band aesthetic gets a contemporary list on this sophomore effort from covers of Blu Cantrell’s hit “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose.”

Hot Chip – One Life Stand (Astralwerks)
Unlike too many of their synth-pop peers, London’s Hot Chip actually knows how to write a song. The band had a hipster break out with the 2006 single “And I Was A Boy From School.” One Life Stand, the band’s fifth proper LP, is jam-packed with stellar “Boy From School”-worthy singles, not least of which is the gold-medal pop song that gives the album its title.

Minor Stars – The Death of The Sun in The SIlver Sea (Summer Secret)
Minor Stars is a start-up rock band from Chapel Hill with an ambitious and promising debut that draws psychedelic sprawl, power-pop hooks, heavy metal trudge and shograze ambience into a concoction as sweet as it is brawny.

Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago (Matador)
Shearwater is, and this is important to note, a rock band. They don’t shy away from dissonance or abrasive, bombastic bursts. But Shearwater’s music will always be pretty. And that’s all thanks to frontman Jonathan Meiburg and his Swarovski crystalline vocals. And his songs go much farther than the novelty of a classically-trained singer fronting an indie rock band.

Shellshag – Rumors In Disguise (Don Giovanni)
This duo blasts shaggy garage rock as catchy as a cold. Their slacker nonchalance is perfected in these 15 shuffling cuts. The songs are short, but once these earworms dig into your brain, they’re far from short-lived.

The Go Find – Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight (Morr Music)
On their latest, The Go Find keeps the rhythmic bounce and keyboard shimmer one might expect from the Morr Music label – known for Postal Service/Owl City-type electronic pop. But here there’s a strong current of Countrypolitan shuffle that gives the record just the songwriter bent it needs to illuminate the craftsmanship in these songs.

Title Tracks – It Was Easy (Ernest Jenning)
Former Q And Not U and Georgie James frontman John Davis now fronts this D.C.-based unit, and powers through Stiff Records pop bursts like a young Elvis Costello (if Costello were fortunate enough to duet with Scottish siren Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura on his debut LP)

Toro Y Moi – Causers of This (Carpark)
South Carolina resident Chaz Bundick goes beyond the “chillwave” fad he’s often lumped into with this collection of hazy, late-night pop gems which marry ’90s R&B with late-night disco for a nostalgic look at youthful innocence through bleary grown-up eyes.

Tunng – …And Then We Saw Land (Thrill Jockey)
Tunng’s quiet and unassuming pop songs lean on their complex and unexpected arrangements to win over a listener. Banjos over auxiliary percussion; acoustic guitars over electronic burbles; rhythmic clatter and sweet harmonies. In their meetings of disparate sounds, Tunng makes a singularly sweet musical confection.

~ Bryan Reed