It’s too rare that I get a myspace friend request (ie, a demo tape) from a band that actually surprises or impresses me. It’s just the nature of such a democratized medium that most of what’s floating around will be crap. Which is what makes my “discovery” yesterday of British band Plugs so exciting. Music aside, their page is immediately promising with its primary colored, flash-animated spirals, its stylish band photos, and its choice list of friends (Numbers, Gravy Train, Clor). But then there’s the music. “That Number” shows traces of the Klaxons, but the stoned, loping blues guitar of the chorus is something else entirely, and the drum machine breakdown is total Hot Chip. The vocals, too, reference Klaxons and Hot Chip, alternating between anemic falsettos and laconic mumbling. “Let Me Go“‘s looped guitar and yearning vocal harmonies are sunny and sweet. “She is Unique“‘s dissonant guitars and fast-talking monotone over programmed blips and beats sounds a bit like a space-age Pavement song. “Transatlantic Air (something)” is classic, harmonic pop. I know these are all pretty big names to be throwing around for some basically unkown band (I could also add Simian and the Beta Band, but I won’t), but these songs are fantastic. Plugs display a prowess for not only song writing but also production. If they have five or six more like these in them, they’ll have a really stellar debut album on their hands.

Here’s their myspace page.

They’re of no relation, it should be noted, to this computer animated cover of “Some Velvet Morning” attributed to the Plugs (thank god):