White Denim

Jam-band virtuosos with an unlikely knack for concise songs, Austin, Texas' White Denim make post-rock that actually rocks. Favoring a bright, treble-heavy guitar attack, the group skew their arrangements in ways that feel more canny than contrived. Fist-pumper "Don't Look That Way at It" threads an accelerated, heavily processed riff through stutter-stepping percussion and a teenage-wasteland chorus, while "You Can't Say" distills melt-with-you chord changes down to a heartbreaking, elemental riff. Artfully ambitious.

By Shannon Zimmerman