57: We Are Scientists - Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

I love We Are Scientists. I fell in love the minute I first clapped eyes on them. It was October 2005, and I was at the Astoria with my then girlfriend to see Editors. We Are Scientists were one of the support acts, but they blew me away with their high energy take on the post-Strokes indie-rock world. That said, my initial assessment on my blog proved to be miles wide of the mark, when I said that they "look like Placebo and sound like a cross between The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand". In reality, they look like the Beastie Boys and sound like...., well, they sound like We Are Scientists. It's a unique and distinctive style that continues to give me great pleasure every time I pop on either of their two albums to date, 'With Love & Squalor' or 'Brain Thrust Mastery'.

Two weeks after the gig, 'The Great Escape' was iTunes' free download of the week, and my love affair began to blossom. Shortly after that, XfM began pummeling 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt', and I was head over heels. Track 1 off any debut album is important to set a marker, an indication of what fans can expect from a new band, and there can be few better debut album openers this decade. The guitars are legendary, and the drumroll heralds the arrival of the band. Indeed, the drumming is probably what I love most about W.A.S., filled with inventive time shifts and rhythms which just insist that, at the very least, you're tapping your feet.