The Age of Rockets

Not regularly listening to the Age of Rockets? That probably means you’re either (a) allergic to Auto-Tune, or (b) not a MySpace-obsessed 14-year-old girl. These aren’t cheap shots – just listen to the vocoded utterings of lead singer Andrew Futral while checking out the doe-eyed “fan art” on the New York natives’ profile and see if you don’t agree. But if you can get past the fact that the song titles occasionally reference Harry Potter spells (seriously), these pseudo-atmospheric, semi-electronic New Yorkers really do know how to write a pretty catchy song, as is clear on their sophomore album, Hannah. If Ben Gibbard had been born 15 years later, this is what Death Cab for Cutie would’ve sounded like.