These contemporary indie veterans have earned their keep as one of the patron saints of modern alternative folk rock. Each of their four albums displays a certain evolution in their sound, and their latest record Permalight sees them heading toward a louder and more expansive aesthetic.

Rogue Wave began in 2002 when front man Zach Schwartz visited friends in New York City to record new material he’d been working on. Those recordings would eventually serve as the foundation of Rogue Wave’s first LP, Out of the Shadow. Schwartz returned from New York to his home in California and assembled a group of musicians to fill out the sound and bring the songs he’d recorded back East to life.

This is where Rogue Wave got its official start, however in the 7 years of its existence the band has gone through so many trials and tribulations that it seems they’ve started anew several times. After their band member Evan Farrell left to tend to other musical projects, he was found dead from massive smoke inhalation, during a fire. The band also experienced trouble when their label, Sub Pop, dropped them despite a successful following and generous buzz. They’ve since found a new home at Jack Johnson’s label Brushfire Records. Zach Schwartz, the lead singer, also has endured serious back injuries recently.

All of these hurdles would seem to give them a green light to create lamentable self-indulgent music, however they’ve managed to stay above their own self-pity and continuously produce quality cerebral pop music. A band like Rogue Wave demonstrates that a little tenacity and great song writing will allow any band to endure the stormiest of weather.

Even a cursory run-through of Harlem’s recordings makes plain the band’s love of playing—and listening to—music. The trio rolls through sixteen tracks on Hippies, their second full-length, with each cut a nugget of garage-y rock filled with allusions to 50s girl groups, 60s pop, psychedelia, punk, and just about everything in between.

Harlem songs are stripped-down affairs, propelled by raw energy, chiming guitars and expressive vocals. The band traffics in driving rhythms and distorted chords, with most tunes barely pushing more than a couple minutes in length. Oftentimes the fellas sound like they’re in a hurry to run off a cliff, but on Hippies they manage to smartly throw in a few slower-tempo, lovesick numbers to balance things out.

Harlem——Coomers (nee Michael Coomer), Curtis O’Mara and Jose Boyer—started building their following one song at a time with their “Cover of the Month Club,” a long-running project in which the band produces their own loose versions of a wide array of songs from the likes of Devo, 60s girl group The Dixie Cups, Paul Revere and the Raiders—even Detroit techno group Drexciya. They subsequently self-release the 4-track bedroom recordings, offering them up for free on their Myspace page.

Hippies is both a welcome progression from and complement to their debut, Free Drugs . The album is due out April 6th on Matador Records.

Why You Should Check Them Out:

The next proud member of a burgeoning brood of Scottish indie rock bands, We Were Promised Jetpacks is riding high off the release of their debut full-length. The band will be spending most of 2010 bringing their heartfelt tales of love and loss across Europe, the US, and beyond.

Background Check:

Is it the weather? The single malt scotch? The haggis? Whatever the inspiration, Scotland has produced some darn good bands this millennium–Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad leading the bunch. Now we can add We Were Promised Jetpacks to the canon, after the 2009 release of their highly-acclaimed debut, These Four Walls [Fat Cat].

The band—vocalist and guitarist Adam Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer, bassist Sean Smith and Darren Lackie on drums–formed as school boys in Edinburgh. The young men entered—and won, unsurprisingly—their high school battle of the bands before migrating to Glasgow to ply their wares and join an already vibrant scene. Like country- and label-mates Frightened Rabbit, WWPJ don’t do anything to obscure their Scottish accents. Quite the contrary: the band emphasizes their native tongue’s rolls and angles, using a pronounced vocal delivery as another weapon in their arsenal.

These Four Walls, the culmination of years of rock-and-toil (the band started up in earnest back in 2003), features driving rhythms, emotive guitars, and even a little glockenspiel, all anchored by rock-solid drums. The tunes vacillate between energetic rockers and dreary—but not too dour—downers, all filled with shimmering cymbals and insistent jangle. The album feels like a release for the band, and a catharsis for the listener.

Where you can find them in cyberspace:

MySpace

Wikipedia

On Tour:

JamBase