Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ting Tings
The Buzz: British boy/girl duo dish out dance tracks done up in neon; find themselves scoring iPod ads and Gossip Girl.
Listen If: The first thing you did with GarageBand was make a Lily Allen/Franz Ferdinand mashup.
Key Track: "Shut Up and Let Me Go," which updates the guitar strut of Blondie's "Rapture" with lyrics about getting off and getting angry.

The Band: Ponytail
The Buzz: Bonkers Baltimore band creates chaotic compositions bursting with joy, possibility and life.
Listen If: You're tired of pasty whiners and want music that sounds like a series of exclamation points.
Key Track: The spectacular "Beg Waves," where a breathless strum does battle with vocalist Molly Siegel's euphoric ululations, resulting in a song that lifts the spirit while blowing the mind.

The Band: HEALTH
The Buzz: LA noise band have just dropped a remix album, adding a little rhythm to their sturm und drang.
Listen If: You always thought what free jazz was missing was a wicked backbeat.
Key Track: "Triceratops (Cfcf Remix)," which starts like the Halloween theme and ends with what sounds like a screaming keytar — which is a whole different kind of scary.

[Photo: Getty]

Who: Tokyo Police Club, a Toronto quartet who played to audiences at the Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury festivals before they turned twenty-one or even released their debut album.

Sounds Like: Too poppy to be post-punk but too clean to be garage-rock, TPC marry bright keyboards and the buoyant voice of singer/bassist Dave Monk into perfect danceable two-minute tunes on their debut album Elephant Shell.

Vital Stats:

(more...)

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ratatat
The Buzz: Brooklyn duo makes clever, clattering floor-fillers with nods to both rock and techno.
Listen If: You play guitar along to Daft Punk tracks because you're plagued by the feeling something's missing.
Key Track: "Shiller" is his latest, and it's so controlled and restrained it's almost taunting: nothing but music box synthesizers and an ominous bass thrum.

The Band: This Is Ivy League
The Buzz: Covert crew members on the Cobra Starship go undercover as twee-hugging indiepoppers. In fairness: they were in Ivy League first, but someone has to pay for that Snakes on a Plane song.
Listen If: You do the bulk of your record shopping in the dollar bins at Salvation Army and know your Left Banke from your Free Design.
Key Track: "Love is Impossible," which scoots along on sugared-up percussion, decked out with bleary brass and broad, bright strumming.

The Band: Spiritualized
The Buzz: Rock vets break a long hibernation with a song that trades their druggy majesty for genuine penitnence.
Listen If: You wish there was a little more room for imperfection (and songs about the same) on the pop charts.
Key Track: "Soul on Fire," from the forthcoming Songs in A&E, which is about the best junkie-gospel this side of Marianne Faithfull.

Who: Sam Champion, a quartet of boisterous New Yorkers eager to play you the songs that got them kicked out of every practice facility in Brooklyn.

Sounds Like: Ryan Adams covering songs off Pavement's Wowee Zowee. On their second album Heavenly Bender, Sam Champion genre jumps from song to song, joyfully morphing elements of raw punk and twangy roots rock with Beck-like precision. "We're just trying to make music that we'd listen to. Crunchy guitars, weird parts, beautiful harmonies and songs you can sing along with,” says singer/guiarist Noah Chernin.

Vital Stats:

(more...)

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Radio Dept.
The Buzz: Swedish indie poppers who've edged gradually away from shoegaze toward some coy approximation of the Cure's Disintegration
Listen If: You wear black on the outside, because black is how you feel on the inside.
Key Track: "Freddie & the Trojan Horse," from their forthcoming EP of the same name, where dour vocals do battle with thwacking percussion and neon-blue guitars.

The Band: Mr. Gnome
The Buzz: OK, full confession: we didn't even know there was a band called Mr. Gnome until we looked at the BFR charts. And we keep up on this stuff. So, buzz? They're a duo from Cleveland named Mr. Gnome. Any questions?
Listen If: Good god, man, they're called Mr. Gnome! How many more reasons do you need?
Key Track: The excellent "Night of the Crickets," where great swipes of serrated guitar slash across Nicole Barille's gooey vocals. The absolute antidote to all those shrinking violets we've been big upping lately.

The Band: Brendan Canning
The Buzz: Canning is a member of Broken Social Scene, whose solo record Something for All of Us will be released in July.
Listen If: You like pop music scuffed up with grimy guitars, or you are Facebook friends with someone who plays in Broken Social Scene (which, let's face it, you probably are).
Key Track: "Hit the Wall" is the one that's turning up, and it buries Canning's tiny voice deep beneath squawking guitars and groaning bass. It's fevered and frenetic and contains exactly the measure of paranoia you'd expect from someone who belongs to what's essentially a musical cult.

Who: Melbourne, Australia's Cut Copy, an indie electro-pop trio who, after touring Down Under with Daft Punk, just released your new favorite summer album In Ghost Colours.

Sounds Like: Gary Numan on Prozac and ecstasy. The band adds sunny hooks and synth waves to sonic collages reminiscent of their countrymen the Avalanches. In Ghost Colours also has an eye towards the dance floor, thanks to the DFA's Tim Goldworthy, who produced the album. "Tim encouraged us to try using weird instruments we wouldn't have tried otherwise, and we had access to all the DFA guitar pedals, so it was a real opportunity to experiment," says frontman and multi-instrumentalist Dan Whitford.

Vital Stats:

(more...)

Every week, Hit or Hype wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: CSS
The Buzz: CSS means Cansei de Ser Sexy, which in turn means "Tired of being sexy." Fittingly, this Brazilian group pairs sly, self-aware lyrics with bright, buoyant pop.
Listen If: You're itching for an update of Cibo Matto's giddy electro.
Key Track: "Rat is Dead (Rage)," which sounds like Sonic Youth if Sonic Youth finally decided to give in and write that radio pop song.

The Band: Sloan
The Buzz: Power-pop vets return with another record of sunshine supersongs.
Listen If: Your idea of "bubblegum pop" is the Raspberries and mid-period Kinks.
Key Track: The Sloan catalog is vast and work exploring, but the current Key Track is "Witch's Wand," where a steady guitar chug is illuminated by bursts of vocal harmony.

The Band: South
The Buzz: Decade-old UK pop band returns with new record, same sound.
Listen If: You spend days dreaming of the intersection of Britpop and indie rock.
Key Track: "Better Things," a light and lovely bit of folk-pop that takes its time arriving at its yearning chorus.

[Photo: Getty]

Who: These New Puritans, a quartet of art brats from Southend-on-Sea, England, that tore up the stage at SXSW, are currently making ears bleed and feet move throughout clubs in Europe and look forward to barnstorming America during their first U.S. tour in July.

Sounds Like: On their debut album Beat Pyramid, TNP smash the post-punk of Gang of Four into the dancefloor-ready anthems trademarked by their nu-raving peers Klaxons and Crystal Castles." People usually say we sit outside of any particular trend," singer/guitarist/computerist Jack Barnett tells Rock Daily.

Vital Stats:

(more...)

Every week, Hit or Hype wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Santogold
The Buzz: Philly by-way-of-Brooklyn vocalist reinvents '80s pop, garners repeated and inexplicable M.I.A. comparisons.
Listen If: You wish Siouxsie & the Banshees had occasionally killed time with King Tubby.
Key Track: "Lights Out," where bright, skating synths provide the support for Santogold's aching falsetto.

The Band: M83
The Buzz: French producer makes 70mm songs for John Hughes movies yet to be filmed.
Listen If: You like Daydreaming about New Order covers of Kate Bush songs — or vice-versa.
Key Track: "Graveyard Girl," which somehow turns Joy Division's "Atmosphere" into a bright summer pop song. If you're not pumping your fist by the spoken word section ("I'm fifteen years old, and I feel it's already too late to live"), you probably have never had an unrequited teenage crush.

The Band: No Age
The Buzz: L.A. outfit rides chaotic live reputation to create droney, lo-fi albums that restore much-needed scuzz and atonality to the increasingly (and depressingly) polite world of indie rock.
Listen If: You think melody is optional (we do, too) and prefer volume to structure.
Key Track: "Eraser," which boasts serrated, detuned no-wave guitars, sloppy, off-tempo percussion, hollered vocals and buckets and buckets of charm.