Artist Happy Birthday

After spending much of the ’00s embracing starry-eyed indie-pop bands like The Shins and Band Of Horses, Sub Pop has turned up the volume in 2010, putting out records by smart and scruffy crunch-rock outfits like Male Bonding, Jaill, and bratty pop-punk band Happy Birthday. Sounding like the late, great Jay Reatard at his bubblegummiest, the Vermont trio pushes at the limits of screechin' 'n' blippin' melodic noise on its self-titled debut, often alternating between adolescent playfulness and juvenile jerkiness several times in the space of a single song. It’s the kind of record you could potentially end up loving, so you long as you survive hating it through the first dozen spins. Hopefully, Happy Birthday’s appeal will be more immediately apparent live than on record.

Updated 07/20/2010