NO KIDS - COME INTO MY HOUSE (LP)

No Kids Come Into My House on Vinyl LP!  

Say what you will about the Great White North's notoriously finicky weather, but Vancouver sounds like the sunniest place in the world when filtered through the immaculate comfort-pop prism of former P:ano denizens Julia Chirka, Justin Kellam, and Nick Krgovich, better known as No Kids. Like their previous incarnation, No Kids are exceedingly uncool and irrefutably talented scholars of pop history, preferring the brainy accuracy of artists such as Steely Dan, Burt Bacharach, Sufjan Stevens, and the Style Council over more traditional indie rock heroes like the Velvet Underground and the MC5 (think Yo La Tengo and Field Music-lite). The trio's one undeniable thread to the gentrified indie pop community is the omnipresent shadow of Brian Wilson, though instead of Pet Sounds, No Kids seem far more intrigued by later albums like Sunflower, Holland, and Carl & the Passions, a notion supported by the schizophrenic one-two punch of melancholic opener "Great Escape" and the bouncy Stereolab-esque "For Halloween." Less busy instrumentally than P:ano, the band still deals out polyrhythms generously and peppers its tunes with a vast arsenal of instruments that include expansive lap steel, woodwinds, and string and horn sections, especially on the Broadway-tinged "I Love the Weekend" and "Neighbors Party." All of these diversions are lovely, if not a bit contrived, and in the end it's the quieter moments like "Dancing in the Stacks" and the lush closer, "The Puddle," that resonate most on Come into My House.

1. Great Escape
2. For Halloween
3. The Beaches All Closed
4. Bluster In The Air
5. I Love The Weekend
6. Four Freshmen Locked Out As The Sun Goes Down
7. Old Iron Gate
8. You Look Good To Me
9. Listen For It, Courtyard Music
10. Dancing In The Stacks
11. Neighbour's Party
12. The Puddle