Bishop Allen are from Brooklyn and they're the best guitar pop band in the world. Probably.

Maybe that's an overblown thing to say, but when I listen to "Busted Heart" or "Little Black Ache" (free downloads on their website!!!), the truth of it resonates strongly. Here's glee, hooks and a casual musical panache - surprising turns of guitar on "Little Black Ache," three songs worth of choruses on "Busted Heart". These are songs that knock me down and pick me right back up. Unlike the New Pornographers their genius is understated, part of a simple easy pleasure. It doesn't intrude. But when you perk up your ears, when you pay attention, all sorts of brilliant flourishes shine through, all sorts of inspiration and magic come whirling out from the magnets. What the finest pop bands do so well - The Strokes, The Beatles, and to a lesser extent Pavement/late VU/Belle & Sebastian - is make wonderful songs sound easy. There's no huffing and puffing in "Last Nite" or "I Want to Hold Your Hand"; it flows like gold bullion from an endless source, something natural and glorious and rich. When our cup overfloweth with good pop songs, it's easy to take things for granted. But if we're hunting for new veins (same as the old veins), Bishop Allen are like the Northwest Territories. Or Botswana. Or somewhere else that's ripe for exploiting.

And did I mention that they're catchy?

Charm School is wonderful without comment. But that won't stop me. Rolling Stone gave it four stars. NPR called it "vibrant, vivid and refreshingly different". Newsweek compared it to Bright Eyes (?!??!?). It's not a "sounds like" record, but there are endless flashes of the familiar, mixed into something new and catchy and live: REM, Tigermilk, Spoon, the Go-Betweens, Buddy Holly, the Lucksmiths, Jonathan Richman, The Shins, Modest Mouse, The Pixies, The Kinks, Wilco, Built to Spill (and on and on). It's not the sound of a band at its peak - it's the sound of a band that has bought a shiny chrome engine, that has stocked the holds with brightcoloured cans, and that is prepared to stay airborne for the rest of its collective lifetime.

So you must listen to "Little Black Ache": it has jangling guitars, oblique-coherent lyrics, yelled vocals in the back, a girl who agrees wholeheartedly. It's got that little blossom of guitar that comes just before the chorus. It's got a depression that's sorta personified, that's dancing with Snoopy at the sock-hop.

So you must listen to "Busted Heart": it starts like a Modest Mouse b-side, but then in comes the sparkly summertime artillery, a jumbled happy-growling chorus. Then the bridge - it lulls, it rocks, it tips back and then reaches high high high.

And yes, you should listen to

Bishop Allen - "Coupla Easy Things". This is the band at its most twee, a creaking swaying boy-girl thing that's hipper but not too distant from "I'm Sticking With You". It wants very much to be liked. It's shrugging in the kitchen and eyeing the phone uneasily. "Telephone turn on sunshine / When it sends you the right voice." The drums nod like a friend who's waiting in the living room. A guitar plays idly, briefly telling its own story. Hot air through a window. A lightbulb flickers and turns off. And maybe, yes maybe, they will indeed sing you to sleep.

[buy]

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a new favourite blog: Fat Planet (legal international downloads)

The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh (for moorcock fans).