Thee Armada, The New You

At first blush, it’s tempting to shrug and dismiss these five North(?) Houston guys as just another wannabe alt-rock band, taking its cues from Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, and all the other bands currently swirling around out there who meld hardcore dynamics with emo melodies and über-hipster cool.

Dig a little deeper into Thee Armada’s (not to be confused with the Winnipeg emo band of the same name; how the hell did that happen?) debut album, The New You, though, and the band paints a different picture. The music steers close to Jimmy Eat World territory, with roaring guitars, anthemic choruses, and bittersweet melodies, and despite the dearth of like-minded bands out there, the band pulls it off nicely, from the inaugural kick-in-the-door slam of “Guess I’m Inconvenience” on.

There’s a hint of ’80s worship on the plaintive-yet-furious “This Flick has Talent,” along with a slightly sci-fi, No Knife-ish feel at points, and it works. “The Sinful Bliss” takes on teen love/lust and manages to sound angry, frantic, and madly in love all at the same time, while “Hotels & Heroin” is bleaker, sort of a halfway cautionary tale about the perils of the rockstar life. Closer “Ravensway” is a blistering, snarling rocker, more full-on rawk than anything else on here, and it makes for a good switch (even if it ends with part of a fairly pointless acoustic version of “Guess I’m Inconvenience”). And it’s weird, but although I know I’ve heard this kind of thing about a million times before, the hooks still latch deep into my brain, and I catch myself humming/singing parts of the songs days later.

Weirder still, while the songs are memorable as hell, the whole of The New You feels like it just blazes on through and is gone before you know it. It’s a seven-song album, trapped somewhere between an EP and a full-length album, and maybe partly because of that, it leaves me wanting to hear more and thinking that modern alt-rock gets a bad rap critically. I’ll grant you that, no, Thee Armada may not be poised to throw the music world on its head; nevertheless, The New You it a catchy, air-drumming-inducing slice of surprisingly well-put-together rock. And it’s good.