Music: The Rosebuds are in full bloom

While standing outside last Sunday's sold-out Death Cab for Cutie show at the Cradle and trying in vain to find myself a scalper, I ran into none other than married couple Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, members--along with drummer Jonathan Bass--of one of the area's premiere indie pop-rock bands, the Rosebuds. They, of course, would be there to support Death Cab, their fellow indie troubadours.

 If you listen to the Rosebud's "My Downtown Friends," you'll hear Howard croon, "But I believe in rock-n-roll." While the Death Cab show that night was more roll than rock, the Rosebuds--especially their debut album Make Out released last month--are a strong, smooth-flowing musical current of both.

 Sing-along pop--that's how the Rosebuds classify their own music. They're pre-"Stacy's Mom" Fountains of Wayne: a more raw yet sunny version of Oasis, or Yo La Tengo with more pop and sparkle. And in some ways, the Rosebuds play in the spirit, if not vein, of other local indie pioneers like Superchunk, Polvo and Archers of Loaf. That free-moving rhythm, that bright-eyed lyricism and that unrestrained musicianship of their songs strike a chord with everything that was and is still good about modern independent music.

 A start-up band from Wilmington, N.C., they've been blazing the path of rock-n-roll for the last two years. Howard, a former land surveyor and member of the band Reverse, still works making concert t-shirts, and Bass, who played with the surf-rock band The Arquettes, now sells liquor. Crisp was a former teacher in Raleigh. However, their lives are starting to change.

 "We've toured up the East coast before a couple of times, but this is the first time that we're touring as a really big band," said Howard last month. "Opening up for Superchunk is pretty big," he admits this last part with almost disbelief.

 Indeed, they're the first local band to be signed by Durham's international indie label Merge Records in years; Make Out was produced by local legend Brian Paulson (Wilco, Beck, Squirrel Nut Zippers); and yes, they've also just completed a leg of their tour with Superchunk, playing at trademark venues like the Cradle and New York's Bowery Ballroom.

 Regarding the band's journey thus far, Crisp says, "For me, it happened the first time that I ever heard him play "Boys Who Love Girls" on the acoustic guitar. Just without words even, I thought that song was magic.... And I knew they would want to put out the album, because I loved it so much."

 With lyrics like "I've got an itchy itching timebomb pulling my heart" and a proliferation of "whoas," "yeahs," and "bomb bomp bahs," the beauty of the music hardly escapes the listener. Here, in Make Out territory, it's all about the hook, but even then, there's still something of an artistic touch applied to every chord strummed and every word sung.