Barcelona

The Seattle quartet Barcelona create lush, melodic, orchestral pop-rock songs of the sort that set off critical alarms in the 40-word-per-minute fingers of Coldplay haters. Yeah, well, fuck ’em: Barcelona’s Absolutes is not only the best local debut of 2007, it might be the best local release, period, of 2007 (perhaps because Barcelona don’t adhere to this town’s redundant lo-fi indie ethic). The more I listen to Absolutes, the more I like it—and the more Barcelona sound like not just another Coldplay knockoff, but rather a gorgeous milieu of Sigur Rós, Radiohead, and, strangely, George Michael. The album’s production is almost impossibly adroit for an outfit so young. And this is, most definitely, an album of wall-to-wall cohesiveness—so very refreshing in an age when bands of Barcelona’s ilk expect to get discovered on the strength of a catchy MySpace single. With Post Harbor and Soular.
Fri., Sept. 28, 8 p.m., 2007