No Need To Suck To See: joyEL7

The zanily-upper-cased joyEL7 don’t hide their influences very well. Besides sprinkling the name of the band that inspired them all over their MySpace like oh so many sparkly GIF files, the opening seconds of any of their songs sonically ask “hey, remember that first Arctic Monkey’s album? And a lil’ of the second one?” This group fancies the sharp, dance-floor guitar stabs of Alex Turner and company, creating songs that plunge ahead recklessly with a few clever twists thrown in for good measure. It sometimes sounds a little too Arctic Monkeys-ish…saying “Timid Genius” is a “Brianstorm” copycat would be giving it too much credit…but they are also capable of stuff like “Rhapsody,” which leans on a specific band’s style but interjects a few unique edges. And hey, if Suck It To See ends up a bust, these guys can serve up a good replacement dish. Listen here.