Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (famously named after Marlon Brando’s biker gang in The Wild One) has established itself as a genuine press darling. Critics can’t seem to stop gushing about the leather-bound trio’s quixotic — and anachronistic — blend of fuzz-tone vocals and lush instrumentation. No mere imitator of the pasty-faced past, BRMC takes the best bits of Britpop stalwarts such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and the London Suede and fuses them with a cynical American vibe that recalls the Velvet Underground at its crankiest. On its new Take Them On, On Your Own, the Los Angeles outfit does away with the dense layers of psychocandy gothfog found on its lauded debut and replaces them with a streamlined sound and politically charged lyrics.