The latest entrant in the flyover-state sweepstakes is Minneapolis quintet Motion City Soundtrack, who crib the best parts of Oklahoma's doe-eyed All-American Rejects, Omaha's Saddle Creek posse, and the Kansas City Get Up Kids crew on its zippy, synth-laced debut, I Am the Movie.
Produced and engineered by indie veteran Ed Rose, who is credited with "creative input" on TGUK's On a Wire, MCS maintains the punkiest edges of that group on harmony-laden songs "Indoor Living" and "Cambridge," while forging into sugar-sweet Reject territory on "The Future Freaks Me Out" and "Red Dress." Lyricist-vocalist Justin Pierre even puts his own spin on the abstract verbal stream-of-consciousness sorrow favored by Nebraska's coolest citizens on "Autographs & Apologies" ("Forward seems like forever/ when 'ever' is hand over hand over hand/ the busy hands keep swimming/ gotta make that motor 'hum'/ get it over and done").
