This band calls its music "hip-pop," and that seems like as good a designation as any: the instrumental lineup, officially anyway, is your standard guitar-guitar-bass-drums, but someone (uncredited) is contributing string samples, keyboard scratching, and what sounds an awful lot like digital drum loops. The resulting sound is effortlessly enjoyable; there are lots of sweet harmonies weaving through the funky beats, as on "Me" and the hygienic "Clean Skin," and everything is buoyed by an almost bubblegummy pop sensibility. And good for them. No one who hears the hook to "Yup" (as in "I'm only two feet from the ground, yup") will be able to stop hearing it for days, and if that's not what pop music is all about, then what is? ~ Rick Anderson