MUSIC: Making Waves

You've heard it all before: They're an indie rock band from New York that, in addition to rocking the retro look, has released the best album of the year. No, I'm not talking about the Strokes. Or Interpol. Or the Walkmen, for that matter. While Longwave may be friends with the iconographic rockers who started it all, they cleverly avoid many of the pitfalls of their peers, achieving new levels of musicality on their debut album, The Strangest Things.

Refraining from grainy guitars and misbegotten technological experiments, Longwave offers up bass-drenched melodies played with insistent urgency. Lead singer Steve Schiltz wraps his voice around Longwave's shimmering melodies, allowing their songs to degenerate into an atmospheric, sonic assault. Beginning with the blaring guitar feedback and booming drum beats of "Wake Me When It's Over," Longwave juxtaposes powerful textured instrumentation with the de rigeur too-cool-for-the-room attitude. It's this contradiction between restraint and heartfelt intensity that drives the toe-tapping, Cure-esque "Everywhere You Turn," and much of the rest of the album, as Longwave offers a series of schizophrenic songs about being unable to communicate. They allow their music to become part of the technological elements they use without exploiting. On "Meet Me at the Bottom," they meld gritty guitars and the sound of crickets chirping with ever-increasing staticy vocals and screeching feedback to paint a sonic picture of deterioration.

Longwave may get a little too poppy at times, but they're always convincing. Maybe they aren't playing by the rules of their geographic genre. Or maybe they're the most experimental rock band around that is also giving fans what they want to hear.

• Hilary Lewis