Gonna Keep On Running

I recently had i-sex with Travis. He supposedly gave me a thousand songs (!!!), but some things did not process (see Tom Waits, DFA Comp. & some other things too). That's okay, my ipod has 4gigs of staying power and a nifty battery charger. While running at the gym, I decided that my normal "workout mix-o" was lame and I needed a change. Scrolling through all of the new material that Trav gave me, I decided on the Exploding Hearts remembering that I liked their song "Sleeping Aides and Razorblades," but never got the album. The first song, "Modern Kicks," lit a little fire under my ass and I ran a little faster – feeling no pain because I was concentrating on the jangly guitar hooks, clever little lyrics and the catchy chorus. The next song, "Modern Pretender" was just as good and I didn't stop running. NEW SONGS TO RUN TO!!!! I think that some people might initially find their sound too poppy, but the more I listened to the album, the more I realized that it was just fucking fun rock-n-roll. You know the kind I'm talking about. The kind that makes you want to dance around in your underwear and sing along when no one is in your apartment. Intrigued, I went snooping on the fantastic internet and found out a few things, namely that the band is no more since three members of the band died in a car accident a year after Guitar Romantic was released. For some reason this Pitchfork interview with them the month before they died gets cut off at the end, but it's interesting to see the band's insistence that they are NOT pop-punk and their energy and love for music. Of course, it is also depressing that such vitality was erased a month later. Their sound definitely has a Buzzcock, faux-British accent vibe with some very poppy elements (listen to the intro and end of "Sleeping Aides and Razorblades"), but I wouldn't call them pop-punk. I think I like them too much to call them that. They just have some very good tunes that are fun to listen to and shake your butt. I can't believe that I discovered them and now there is no more music to look forward too! It really is sad because the album was receiving some great reviews and they were looking at some label action before the whole car accident thing happened, another excuse why subways aren't so bad. If you want to check them out, their site has some mp3 snippets. Songs to seek are the ones mentioned above and "Rumours in Town."