Wild Beasts are a quartet hailing from Leeds, UK, featuring above all else an enormous, show-stopping falsetto from vocalist Hayden Thorpe. There's lush, dynamic pop tunes -- all bearing fruit -- on Two Dancers, but there's no denying the centerpiece. Moaning, yelping and cooing about girls, the night's dirty underbelly and the pretty things that destroy our innocence, Thorpe offers a sort of answer to The The's desperate Dusk; he trills and woos the dangerous side of attraction and temptation with boyish charms. more ›

Although they may share neighboring shelf space in record stores and similar vowel sounds with the DC reggae/punk band, their music couldn’t be more different. These two blonde Cincinnati boys, Benjamin Davis and Sebastien Schultz, have come up with a fairly affecting mixture of perky pop and sweetly vulnerable indie rock. Well, to be fair there is a third member; she’s a 1973 reel-to-reel for playback of background mixes named Irene. They’ve built up a little steam recently on the music blogs, and of course they’re headed to Austin for SXSW. more ›