Tokyo Police Club

With only two of the eleven tracks on Tokyo Police Club's brilliant full-length debut crossing the three-minute mark, the Canadian quartet offers the ideal soundtrack for our attention-impaired age. The twitchy dance rock of the group's much-lauded EP, A Lesson in Crime, has given way to poignantly nervous future pop on its followup, Elephant Shell. The musical statements, however, are just as terse, tense and taut. While it's not always clear exactly what vocalist/bassist David Monks is going on about, the anxiety and melancholy with which he, guitarist Josh Hooks, keyboardist Graham Wright and drummer Greg Alsop inject their brief boppers are undeniable. Exquisitely bittersweet melodies pair with bubbly beats that strike strategically at your dancing bone. If you have trouble imagining what it would sound like if Ben Gibbard covered the Ramones while held prisoner in a penal colony in space, get out and catch this foursome from the future.