Broadcast

With a promising debut, Denver quartet Meese effortlessly traverse from guitar-laden indie pop (like the chiming opener “Forward Motion”) to melodic piano-based ballads (such as the cascading “Taking the World On”), to four-on-the-floor dance pop (as heard on the standout track “Next In Line”), all while retaining a distinctive sound that is unmistakably theirs. Meese’s first album oozes with the kind of endearing post-adolescent tunes that you’d expect to hear in the soundtrack to a hip romantic comedy like Juno or Knocked Up. Singer Patrick Meese inflects with a demure boyish tone somewhat similar to the range of Thomas Mars from Phoenix or Xavier Boyer of Tahiti 80, though his songs are more immediately catchy and conducive to road-trip singalongs. After winning his battle with an addiction to club drugs in the ‘90s, Patrick retained a healthy affinity to airtight rhythm-driving choruses that give many of these songs infectious, danceable beats. Even catchy guitar based songs like “Bonfire” lean on toe-tapping rhythms that grow into a pulse-pumping and begging-for-festive grooving.