It's a good time to be Imperial Teen. The San Francisco quartet were squishing together hooks and drones before everyone had broadband, and now they've returned with their first album in five years, just as bands like Frankie Rose and Weekend are helping revive the sound of classic indie pop. Feel the Sound turns blipping guitars and synth riffs into roller-skate jams the whole band can harmonize over. Even if Imperial Teen's gay pedigree seems, thankfully, far less of a big deal than it used to, it's still cool to hear "Last to Know" endorse "pumped-up pecs and sticky skin," while "Over His Head" and "Hanging About" are perfect for pretending the Pacific Coast Highway is the Autobahn. 

Listen to Imperial Teen's "Runaway":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."