Bishop Allen have made great strides since their Modest Mousey beginnings on 2003's self-released Charm School LP. Much of that progress, the result of growing and maturing as a band, in large part came out in 2006 with an ambitious EP-a-month project. This was later condensed to make up most of the 2007's The Broken String, Bishop Allen's first for Dead Oceans.
The band (at its core a duo of Justin Rice and Christian Rudder) is at its peak on Grrr..., sticking to basic guitar pop with the occasional embellishment in the arrangements. Nearly every song is a tightly wound pop construct in a similar vein as Spoon, and in just a few releases the band has gone from barely notable to indie-pop's Little Band That Could. (It also doesn't hurt that The Broken String's "Click, Click, Click" was featured in a Sony camera commercial, and the band made an appearance in last year's teenage hipster mash note, Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist, and Rice himself has made the rounds in a number of films over the past few years).
The infectious, bouncy one-two punch of "Oklahoma" and "The Ancient Commonsense of Things" is as good as anything the band has done, and if those songs weren't both so hooky, the fact that they're nearly identical to one another might be a major complaint. Any band can write lyrics, but the "la la las" and "oh oh ohs" are just as important, and Grrr... is filled with 'em, especially on the latter track. Meanwhile,"True or False" has a summery, boozy shuffle, while the galloping "Rooftop Brawl" and the Spoon-esque "Cue the Elephants" show the band sticking with what makes great rock - taking a few chords and a good hook and driving them into the ground.
Each Bishop Allen release has been a vast improvement over its predecessor, so here's hoping the trend keeps up.
Bishop Allen - The Lion & the Teacup
Bishop Allen - The Ancient Commensense of Things
Bishop Allen - Click, Click, Click (live on the Street of NYC)
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