College pop / geek rock / indie awesomeness. Adorable, happy, fun. Three Jews from B-town who got their start playing campfire acoustic indie (cough Goldfly) and broke big when I was in junior high. Cue: the band I’ve seen live more than any other. Lilty guitar, hand-drums (no, really -- their drummer plays kit with his motherfucking hands), bells, harmonies, cute-as-shit melodies, lyrics about failed relationships, road trips, self examination, dreaming of big things, etc. Known for writing songs of substance, as dinky as that sounds.

This is Guster’s sixth album. Not their best or worst. If you want to start somewhere, start with Lost and Gone Forever (1999), and then cycle one up, one back, until you hit them all. These guys had me the minute they took the best bits of Radiohead’s “Thinking About You” and turned the whole track into “Barrel of a Gun”. They may never actually top that record, but you know what, I don’t care.

Oh hell. If you’re helping Jukebox The Ghost chart, you should be playing this.

try: ALL
start with: 2, 12, 1, 8, 10
no FCCs

*1. surefire acoustic, deep rich draggy rhythm. ever-so-slight post-punk edge. ‘ooh’s that would make the shins proud. moving van music.
*2. country strum + handclap beat morphs into happy pop rock goodness. bells, gongs, callbacks, bouncy melodies. at their best.
3. deep hummy caribbean beat. echoes of the killers, vampire weekend, et al. melancholy, but uptempo, relationship retrospective.
4. train track guitar rhythm. hoppin’ bass drum. very “i’m wide awake it’s morning”. noisy guitar slider chorus. cute and contagious “whoa”s.
5. jews write the best hymnals. old timey fingerpicked guitar + crackly piano. shakers, shimmering cymbals. very pretty and sweet.
6. jaunt-rock piano, brushed drums, falsetto “ooh”s. bright and happy. “there is love, there is peace in this world.”
7. synth + kit. harmonica! uptempo island beat. sour lyrics, happy music. hey.
*8. upfront vox and mandolin to start. speedy yet chill beat + steel drums, swells to a mix of horns, sax, and a thick harmony-laden pop chorus. ‘what you call love is just urgency!’ a big fucking party, really.
9. luau strum, springtime horns, cute piano. breezy, casual melody. shimmery.
*10. hard syncopated guitar + drum kit. high sharp staccato piano. big sweeping pedal-piano chorus. edgy, minor, foreboding... a la ‘red oyster cult’.
11. wobbly start. dark banjo + shakers. kinda like a western. atmospheric, achey.
*12. OOC dance synth + drum machine break into, what can i say, a fucking great indie pop song. loud, layered, lush. long fade-out. kudos, boys.