Snowden

Snowden's Jade Tree debut, Anti-Anti, instantly transports listeners to the dark, electro-infused '80s rock of Joy Division, Bauhaus and the Cure. So, naturally, comparisons to Interpol, She Wants Revenge and the Editors are inevitable. However, none of that name-checking helps much, except to hint at the dark drama, intensity and rump-shaking stirred up by this Atlanta-based quartet. The outfit's self-recorded and self-released EP came out of nowhere in 2004 to light up music blogs and college radio, and this year's full-length makes good on the smoke-perfumed promise of that introduction. Vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist and auteur Jordan Jeffares gets his goth-tastic groove on, with lyrics torn from your most literate friend's MySpace blog and beats to make even the most motionless pelvis ache. Although the band is essentially Jeffares's puppet show, the sinister sexiness of Corinne Lee's bass lines might be its secret weapon, dosing the frontman's dreamy compositions with a heaping helping of low-end booty sauce.