Pitchfork

A can pops open. Legos snap into place. Flutes poke, trumpets parry, and evil robots chortle as if Bearsuits' name was Yoshimi. Somewhere in an ever-expanding universe of guitar, synths, and stuff your short-lived bad-kid playground friend probably pickpocketed from 7/11, the guileless boy-girl vocals of Iain Ross and Lisa Horton chase high-fructose melodies that start, stop, and change directions in mid-air like a butterfly or a hovercraft.

Or: In what's shaping up to be a solid 12 months for arty indie-pop and schizophrenic noise-pop alike, English sextet Bearsuit lend the inspired innocence of the former to the joyous chaos of the latter. The gentle, melodic "Cherryade", with clip-clop percussion and May morning harmonies, could be The Boy Least Likely To or a more sonically adventurous Camera Obscura. "Going Steady" goes anything but, the frenzied energy of "Popscene"-era Blur made weirder with herky-jerky changes and this year's nominee for Best Indie-Pop Comeback Instrument, the recorder. "Cookie Oh Jesus" and "Itsuko Got Married" go off to the races with rapidfire handclaps and the whirligig aesthetic of peers like Bunky, or Deerhoof, or the Go! Team, or Architecture in Helsinki.

Or: "Why are the machines so sad?" wonders Ross on the wistful, (post-?) apocalyptic finale, "On Your Special Day". Shit, why indeed? It can't be cinematic opener "Welcome to Bearsuit Hotel", an instrumental unless you count Japanese spoken-word snippets! It's definitely not due to "Rodent Disco", 2:08 of fuzz, sirens, strobe lights, a (deaf?) dumb and blind kid, cheerleader chants ("disco!"), and all of the sudden the tape stopping-- then starting-- then a final 20 seconds of chintzy fucking Casio. Is it the infectious (ha!) Plague-prompted chorus of "Prove Katie Wrong"? Maybe it's tinkly nonconformist ode "Diagonal Girl" ("don't get too straight") or impatient short-song-with-long-name "I Feel the Heat of the Light From Heaven".

Or: Former John Peel favorites Bearsuit don't know a good thing when they see it, but they know not knowing is a better thing-- or another thing, anyway-- and that's all I know, except that once you open the can a fake snake jumps out (it's called love!) and everyone laughs but you can't close it. A fine spectacle, indeed.