We Are Scientists are following a success template traced by legions (the Rapture, Bloc Party, blah blah). After self-releasing a series of EPs beginning in 2001, WAS got scooped up by Virgin, hence their full-length debut, With Love and Squalor (out Jan. 10). What makes it good is the execution of detail from the tense guitars to skitter-pop hooks to singer-guitarist Keith Murrays woeful croon. Murray quit obsessing over the albums release to share some other monomanias:
5. No sleep til ... I live in Brooklyn, or, at least, thats where I send my rent checks. Im never here, though, so, before we go back on tour, Im all about wantonly indulging in pizza, bagels, gunplay, being brutally unfriendly to neighbors all the things that define Brooklyn to me.
4. Hows about a fedora? I could use a good hat. My head, its always cold, always windblown. My hair is always disheveled, and not in that fashionable way that has paid such huge dividends for so many of my contemporaries.
3. Pawnshop heart. The sweetest instrument shop in all of Brooklyn just moved across the street from my apartment, and Im finding that Im going out of my way to take advantage of their superior repair services. Guitars, a bass head, shoes, a toaster.
2. Pumped for the sophomore slump. Our first album isnt even out in the U.S. yet, and already Im stressing over writing the next one. Should we change our sound? Hire cant-miss songwriter Linda Perry?
1. My wallet. Its got to be around here somewhere.
Jan. 15 at the Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7665; with the Oxford Collapse.
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