The Fever

Being a band from Brooklyn is getting a little dicey. The flood of "cool" acts and their big-city-centered hype has grown tiresome. And thanks to the internet, the time it now takes for hep-culture schlubs here in Ohia to ingest and poop out the next big thing has been bumped up from two years to one. So hitting the road in hopes of finding less fickle faces to play to doesn't hold the promise it used to for New York hypesters gone passé in their own hood.

But out the Fever goes, and it would behoove cyberskeptics to click "shut down" and go see this amazing quintet. Its five-song EP, Pink on Pink (Kemado Records), was one of 2003's most overlooked slabs -- mainly because, well, y'know, jeez, they're another slightly new-wavey garage band from Brooklyn! Only this bunch adds a desperate, noir nerve center, like a doomed gumshoe exchanging the trench coat for a ragged jean jacket and cutting down an alley, only to duck into a punk-rock party. The voice is all squeal-sliced croon over stuttering guitar and synth riffs that can detonate an explosive chorus at any moment.