REVIEW: We Are Scientists "With Love and Squalor"

Rating: 5.5

Interpol Kills Franz Ferdinand.  Wildly inaccurate international news headline or three bands you are most likely to think of while listening to We Are Scientists?  This trio races through a pretty tight set of twenties-something drunken regret party rockers with precision and passion.  Why they aren't more popular with artsy high school rockers or indierock frat boys I don't know.  Then again maybe they are.  How should I know.

Scientists are not as dark as Interpol but owe a debt to their bass lines and vocal phrasing.  They're not as handsomely MTV ready as The Kills but play just as tightly with the same sort of melodic guitars.  And they're not as sexy or dancefloor conscious as Franz Ferdinand but they do know the beat and aren't afraid to use it.  The strength of the first single "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" and its 80s soaked "oh oh oh oh oh" refrain at the end of each line could easily chatter the album to a place near the top of the decade's alt-rock subgenre barrel.  Then again, and more likely, it could be seen as an asterisk behind Interpol, The Kills and Franz Ferdinand.