Genre: Rock Year: 2003 Country: USA Web: Official Site Details: Tracks & Audio Label: Subpop

They come from a northern land, British Columbia, and they have shown me Canadian music doesn't stink these days. Hot Hot Heat remind me of when XTC still rocked, way back in their early New Wave days, with White Music and Go 2.

Steve Bays' wild keyboards — all organ and piano — and yelping vocals remind me so much of XTC's Andy Partridge on the insanely infectious "Bandages" and "This Town" that, in my mind, I replace Bays scruffy-haired alterna-look in the album art and picture him as a svelte Partridge, all pout and pre-stage fright. Bays' warbly yelping doesn't wander aimlessly, though: He respects the melody and the harmonies, but travels to and from to explore the little fun nooks and crannies. His singing feelsa fun.

This is propulsive pop-rock, with quick strum beats (Dante Decaro) and stabbing keyboard notes, with bouncing bass (Dustin Hawthorne) and tapping drums (Paul Hawley).

And it's ever so catchy, all 10 songs, with only one slow one to the bunch, the last. "In Cairo" indulges a light yet melancholy piano riff, but even that, slow as it may be, still keeps a steady bass line and a sprightly tambourine following the piano.

  Brendan Howard