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BORN RUFFIANS: Red, Yellow And Blue [Warp]

Depicting a nerdy guy, a chubby guy and a normal guy shooting the shit obliviously while a party rages around them, Born Ruffians’ wonderfully stuttering video for “Hummingbird” (the first single off their debut album) casts the energetic, underage-looking lads as an indie-rockin’ Superbad. The only problem with that parallel? Red, Yellow And Blue is good. As in Supergood. On the Toronto trio’s eponymous 2006 EP, singer Luke LaLonde’s breathless barks, bassist Mitch DeRosier’s frantic riffs and drummer Steve Hamelin’s rolling fills suggested a future of lo-fi, Pixies-dusted punk/pop. This prognostication proved half right. Where before the Ruffians trafficked in rough edges, here they trade almost exclusively in the shimmy. Shack-shakers such as “Barnacle Goose” and “I Need A Life” rush by on fleet-footed rhythms, group-shouted vocals and machine-gunned guitars, while the ridiculously catchy “Foxes Mate For Life” and “Kurt Vonnegut” would surely rule any radio station smart enough to put them into rotation. For fans of top-shelf indie rock, it’ll be something more like McLovin at first spin. [www.warprecords.com]

—Noah Bonaparte Pais